In this post, you’ll learn how to set Copilot hardware key using Intune. Using the Settings Catalog, you can now remap the Copilot key for users to launch their favorite app or remap it to a custom function.
In January 2024, Microsoft announced the introduction of the Copilot key on new Windows 11 PCs. The “Copilot key” is a special physical key on the keyboard designed to launch Microsoft Copilot, the AI assistant integrated into Windows.
Windows 11 users can also customize the Copilot key in the settings to launch their favorite app. The Copilot key must be present on the keyboard for this to work. For instance, you can remap the Copilot key to open apps such as Notepad, Photos, or Calculator.
Starting in Intune service release 2411, a new setting, ‘Set Copilot Hardware Key,‘ has been added in the Settings Catalog. This policy determines which app opens when the user presses the Copilot key on their keyboard. When you enable and configure this policy setting, the specified app will open when the user presses the Copilot key.
Find the AppIDs of installed apps
Knowing the AppID of the app is an important requirement for configuring the Copilot hardware key for a user in Intune. That’s because when you configure the ‘SetCopilotHardwareKey‘ policy, it requires you to enter the App ID of the app. This AppID is nothing but the AppUserModelID and this value is what we specify in our Intune policy.
The Get-StartApps PowerShell cmdlet gets the names and AppIDs of installed apps for the current user. This is the easiest and quickest way to determine the AppID of an app. This cmdlet works on Windows 11, including Windows Server 2025 operating systems.
To find the names and AppIDs of all the installed apps for the current user, run the below command:
Get-StartAppsRun the below PowerShell command to find the AppID of a specific app, such as Snipping Tool.
Get-StartApps -Name "Snipping Tool"From the command output, the AppID of Snipping Tool is Microsoft.ScreenSketch_8wekyb3d8bbwe!App.
To determine if the above AppID is correct, paste the below command in the run window and press enter. The corresponding app should be launched on your PC now.
Shell:AppsFolder\Microsoft.ScreenSketch_8wekyb3d8bbwe!App
Set Copilot Hardware Key using Intune
Let’s create a new configuration policy in Intune to set the Copilot hardware key for users. Sign in to the Intune admin center. Go to Devices > Manage devices > Configuration > Create > New policy. Choose Windows 10 and later for the platform and Settings catalog for profile type.
Enter the policy name and add a brief description about the policy.
- Name: Set Copilot Hardware Key using Intune.
- Description: A policy to remap the Copilot key on your keyboard to launch an app.
Click Next.
In the Settings picker window, type ‘Copilot Hardware Key‘ in the search box and press Search. From the search results, select the Windows AI category. In the bottom section, select the following setting: Set Copilot Hardware Key (User). Close the Settings Picker.
Paste the AppID of the app in the text box. In the below example, I have pasted the AppID of the Snipping Tool app. This app opens when the user presses the Copilot key on their keyboard. Click Next.
In the scope tags section, you specify scope tags. Specifying scope tags is optional, and you may skip this step. Click Next.
In the Assignments window, select the user groups to which you want to assign the SetCopilotHardwareKey policy. I recommend deploying the profile to a few test user groups first and then expanding it to more users if the testing is successful. Select Next.
On the Review + Create page, review all the settings that you have configured for configuring the Copilot key via Intune and select Create.
After you create a configuration policy in Intune, a notification appears: “Policy created successfully.” This confirms that the policy has been created and is being applied to the groups we chose. The profile we created can be found in the configuration profiles section of the admin center.
Sync the latest policies with Intune
To speed up the policy assignments, you can manually sync Intune policies using different methods on your Windows computers to get the latest policies from Microsoft Intune. This is particularly helpful when you want to make sure a policy is functioning properly before implementing it for a wider range of people.
Monitoring the SetCopilotHardwareKey policy
To monitor the SetCopilotHardwareKey policy in Intune, check the device and user check-in status for the policy. Here you can see the total number of users who succeeded in receiving the policy. In some cases, the policy may fail to apply to certain devices. To resolve the issues, you will need to troubleshoot the issue by reviewing Intune logs on Windows computers.
For some devices, you may notice that the Set Copilot Hardware Key (User) policy shows the status as Not Applicable. This happens when you have applied the policy to those devices that do not have the Copilot hardware key present on the keyboard.
End-User Experience
Once the devices are synced with Intune and have received the above policy, let’s sign in to a Windows 11 device and check to see if pressing the Copilot key opens the app that we mapped in our Intune policy.
If the user is in a remote location, you can ask the user to press the Copilot key on their keyboard to see if the Snipping Tool app opens. During my testing, the Copilot key was successfully configured to open the app that we defined in the policy. All users were able to swiftly initiate the Snipping application by simply pressing the Copilot key.
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