this post was submitted on 07 Feb 2026
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The new Micro~~soft~~slop copilot key always sends the following key-sequence when pressed:

copilot key down: left-shift-down left-meta-down f23-down f23-up left-meta-up left-shift-up
copilot key up: <null>

This means there's no real key-up event when you release the key --> it can't be used (properly) as a modifier like ctrl or alt.

The workaround is to send a pretend key-up event after a time delay, but then you mustn't be too slow / fast when pressing a shortcut.

tldr: AI took a perfectly working modifier key from you.

--- edit ---
Some keyboards apparently do the "right" thing and don't send the whole sequence at once, you can remap those properly with keyd, see: https://github.com/rvaiya/keyd/issues/1025#issuecomment-2971556563 / https://github.com/rvaiya/keyd/issues/825

copilot key down: left-shift-down left-meta-down f23-down
copilot key up: f23-up left-meta-up left-shift-up

this will still break left-shift + remapped copilot and left-meta + remapped copilot, but RCtrl remaps should work as expected

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[–] PoopMonster@lemmy.world 14 points 3 days ago (8 children)

Never thought I'd say this... I'm considering a Mac as my next laptop.

[–] ageedizzle@piefed.ca 4 points 2 days ago

What’s the linux experience like on a mac? Last time I tried to do that the sound didn’t work because Apple hadn’t released the firmware for the speakers 

[–] attero@discuss.tchncs.de 5 points 2 days ago (2 children)

You might wanna start getting used to pressing command with your thumb, instead of ctrl with your pinkie then:

Here's my rant about inconsistent keyboard shortcuts on non-macOS systems:
https://mastodon.social/@attero/115771231064736124

[–] SlurpingPus@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

After using Mac I'm never going back to pressing modifiers with the pathetic pinky instead of the strong thumb. It's especially nice with an MS Natural keyboard with its gigantic alt keys, remapped to cmd.

Supposedly some early keyboards had ctrl under the thumb, which is why Emacs employs it quite a bit. I wonder if other apps and systems also had the same logic initially, or borrowed it from Emacs, leading to ctrl being used as the main modifier in Windows and Linux.

[–] thejml@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 days ago (2 children)

I prefer it, however there are apps for Mac to remap it if you like. I use Karabiner to remap my Capslock to Escape. I have Capslock and moving the escape key there is much more ergonomic and where i have it on my custom mechanical keyboards.

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[–] FireWire400@lemmy.world 11 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

My ThinkPad has one and it is just kinda there... despite it supposedly being remapable since Kernel 6.16 or so I can't get it to properly remap.

I'd love to map it to open LM Studio lol

[–] kamen@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

I'm all for hardware remappable keyboards in laptops too - just like what you can have with an external one. I do realise though that this is a niche within a niche. From what I know only Framework (oh, and System76) is doing something like that.

[–] SUDO@reddthat.com 5 points 2 days ago

Didn't KDE say they were working on a way to remap it in a future update?

[–] probable_possum@leminal.space 6 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

It's worth taking a look in the BIOS/ UEFI setup - maybe the key can be remapped there? Once the default F-key behaviour could be defined in there for ThinkPad devices.

[–] ageedizzle@piefed.ca 2 points 2 days ago (2 children)

That sounds way beyond the average users technical expertise. But it sounds like it might work. If you manage to figure out how to do that please let me know 

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[–] TootSweet@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago

Jesus. I guess we're going to have to start figuring out how to reverse engineer our keyboards so we can install QMK on random built-in laptop keyboards and cheap Logitech membrane keyboards to repair the damage Microsoft has done to them.

[–] RIotingPacifist@lemmy.world 5 points 2 days ago

Smells like antitrust violations.

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