rue!!!!

I opened Word yesterday to discover that it now contains CoPilot. It follows you as you type and if you have a personal Microsoft 365 account, you can't turn it off. You will be given 60 AI credits per month and you can't opt out of it.

The only way to banish it is to revert to an earlier version of Office. There is lot of conflicting information and overly complex guides out there, so I thought I'd share the simplest way I found.

How to revert back to an old version of Office that does not have CoPilot

This is fairly simple, thankfully, presuming everything is in the default locations. If not you'll need to adjust the below for where you have things saved.

Click the Windows Button and S to bring up the search box, then type cmd. It will bring up the command prompt as an option. Run it as an administrator.

Paste this into the box at the cursor: cd "\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\ClickToRun"

Hit Enter

Then paste this into the box at the cursor: officec2rclient.exe /update user updatetoversion=16.0.17726.20160

Hit enter and wait while it downloads and installs.

VERY IMPORTANT. Once it's done, open Word, go to File, Account (bottom left), and you'll see a box on the right that says Microsoft 365 updates. Click the box and change the drop down to Disable Updates.

This will roll you back to build 17726.20160, from July 2024, which does not have CoPilot, and prevent it from being installed.

If you want a different build, you can see them all listed here. You will need to change the 17726.20160 at step 4 to whatever build number you want.

This is not a perfect fix, because while it removes CoPilot, it also stops you receiving security updates and bug fixes.

Switching from Office to LibreOffice

At this point, I'm giving up on Microsoft Office/Word. After trying a few different options, I've switched to LibreOffice.

You can download it here for free: https://www.libreoffice.org/

If you like the look of Word, these tutorials show you how to get that look:

www.howtogeek.com/788591/how-to-make-libreoffice-look-like-microsoft-office/

www.debugpoint.com/libreoffice-like-microsoft-office/

If you've been using Word for awhile, chances are you have a significant custom dictionary. You can add it to LibreOffice following these steps.

First, get your dictionary from Microsoft

Go to Manage your Microsoft 365 account: account.microsoft.com.

One you're logged in, scroll down to Privacy, click it and go to the Privacy dashboard.

Scroll down to Spelling and Text. Click into it and scroll past all the words to download your custom dictionary. It will save it as a CSV file.

Open the file you just downloaded and copy the words.

Open Notepad and paste in the words. Save it as a text file and give it a meaningful name (I went with FromWord).

Next, add it to LibreOffice

Open LibreOffice.

Go to Tools in the menu bar, then Options. It will open a new window.

Find Languages and Locales in the left menu, click it, then click on Writing aids.

You'll see User-defined dictionaries. Click New to the right of the box and give it a meaningful name (mine is FromWord).

Hit Apply, then Okay, then exit LibreOffice.

Open Windows Explorer and go to C:\Users\[YourUserName]\AppData\Roaming\LibreOffice\4\user\wordbook and you will see the new dictionary you created. (If you can't see the AppData folder, you will need to show hidden files by ticking the box in the View menu.)

Open it in Notepad by right clicking and choosing 'open with', then pick Notepad from the options.

Open the text file you created at step 5 in 'get your dictionary from Microsoft', copy the words and paste them into your new custom dictionary UNDER the dotted line.

Save and close.

Reopen LibreOffice. Go to Tools, Options, Languages and Locales, Writing aids and make sure the box next to the new dictionary is ticked.

If you use LIbreOffice on multiple machines, you'll need to do this for each machine.

1: Do you ever wish you were someone else?

2: What is your full name?

3: How old are you and how old do you get mistaken for?

4: Have you ever dyed your hair?

5: What’s your eye color?

6: Your opinion about your body and how comfortable you are with it

7: Do you have any tattoos or piercings?

8: What would you say is your best quality?

9: What are you really bad at?

10: What talent do you wish you had?

11: Are you nice to everyone?

12: What do you think about the most?

13: Things you like/dislike about yourself

14: What is your least favorite word?

15: What is your favorite word?

16: Are you more like your mom or your dad?

17: Would you ever smile at a stranger?

18: A reason you’ve lied to someone

19: Are you lying about anything right now?

20: Have you kissed someone older than you?

21: Do you believe in love at first sight?

22: Do you believe in soulmates?

23: Are looks important?

24: Opinion on relationship age differences

25: Would you date someone off the Internet?

26: Have you ever cried over a boy/girl?

27: Have you ever wanted someone you couldn’t have?

28: Anyone you’re giving up on right now?

29: Have you ever liked someone who your friends hated?

30: Have you ever liked your best friend?

31: How does someone win your heart?

32: What turns you on?

33: What turns you off?

34: Do you get jealous easily?

35: What is your definition of cheating?

36: Do you forgive betrayal?

37: Have you ever been cheated on?

38: Have you ever cheated on someone?

39: How often do you listen to music?

40: First concert you attended

41: Last movie you watched

42: Favorite type of movie

43: Is there something that happened in your past that you hate talking about?

44: Are you good at hiding your feelings?

45: Do you fall in love easily?

46: Do you think people say I love you too much?

47: What’s your favorite holiday?

48: Are you a forgiving person? Do you like being that way?

49: Where’s the most magical place on earth?

No, you don't want that otter. No, that is not a pet. No, that up close encounter where you can pay to cuddle with an otter is probably not ethical. No, I'm pretty sure that channel with a guy and his pet otters is not a legitimate "animal rescue", stop recommending it to me.

Yes, the otter is cute. Please admire them either from a distance, or behind a barrier at an accredited facility. Thank you.

If you want a pet, you want a domesticated species. If you want a domesticated mustelid (the family otters belongs to), we have one: it's called a "ferret"

All of the issues of supporting less ethical encounters and driving the illegal pet trade aside (other people already covered them, yay), have you seen those teeth? The ones that rip through fish like butter?

North American River Otter (The Des Moines Register)

Asian Small-Clawed Otter (Knockhatch Adventure Park)

Do you want wet slippery stinky chaos gremlins with those teeth anywhere near your soft fleshy parts? No. No you do not.

People get bitten by wild otters and it is a big enough deal to make the media when it happens! There’s a bunch of examples of serious bites at this link. They mostly avoid people but when they feel threatened they can fuck you up.

Seriously. There is a reason that people who work with otters, professionally in credible zoos and aquariums are the least likely people you will see reaching in to sneak a skritch. They only contact their otters in heavily trained situations using very thoroughly positively reinforced tactile cues.

hello! i am a wildlife rehabber & educator in the state of california. today, i am driving a non releasable bobcat 5.4 hours south to his permanent home at another wildlife center. this is the second bobcat we have had like this in the last 6 months. not counting before that, and not counting previous residents.

at my other center, over the years, we have had no less than 7 habituated ex-'pet' coyotes, and 10 or more habituated foxes, both from backyard feeding & illegal keeping.

these animals have been surrendered, abandoned, or seized by fish and willdife. i have 6 years of experience working with them. the treatment of wild animals as pets and at bad facilities sickens me because of how badly it affects how visitors view our animals.

did you know there was an increase in illegal trade of endangered slow loris species after a video of one being pet went viral?

There’s not a lot of treatments, and there isn’t a single one that is for vaginismus exclusively - they’re all medications or treatments to treat symptoms, but not the causes. In fact, for a long time doctors waved off vaginismus as a purely psychological disorder in cis women.

It’s incredibly common! And it can be treated by physiotherapy.

I know this because I’m currently undergoing physio and although it can take months to recover, I’m already seeing improvement. A lot of the pelvic floor exercises are available online, but if you have these symptoms please TALK TO YOUR DOCTOR and see if you can get a physio referral (or investigation for underlying causes like endometriosis).

Also, my additions to posts never get reblogged so a note to my followers: this is SUPER IMPORTANT ISSUE that affects many people and is rarely talked about. Please reblog, and please share this info with as many people as possible.

Including, but not limited to! If you have experienced chronic muscle pain, nerve pain, hip injury, spinal cord injury (or lesions), difficult pelvic exams, hormonal changes- consider if this is something your doctors might be overlooking.