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To the shock of no one, Windows 10 users who upgrade to the Anniversary Update (scheduled for release next week), will not be able to disable Cortana using the settings.
If you compare the start menu settings of Cortana of the current version of Windows (version 1511) with those of the Anniversary Update (version 1607) you will notice that Cortana's off switch is no longer available (thanks Ian Paul @PC World for spotting that)
Cortana, the digital assistant that Microsoft touts as one of the major features of Windows 10 supports interaction via touch, typing, ink and voice.
Microsoft integrated Cortana deeply with the native search functionality of Windows 10. While linked to search, Windows 10 users may turn off Cortana currently to use search without it. While you might have to turn off web searches on Windows 10 as well, doing so ensured that you got search functionality that matched those of previous versions of Windows.
Windows users who turned off Cortana had two main reasons for it: either they did not need Cortana functionality, or they did not want it because of privacy implications.
[...] It is still possible to turn off Cortana, but not by using the preferences. The policy to disable Cortana is still available and you may use it to turn off Cortana on the device.
Please note that the Group Policy Editor is only available in professional versions of Windows 10. Most notably, it is not available in Windows 10 Home.
The linked article goes into detail on how to disable Cortana using the Registry in Windows 10 Home, and Group Policy Editor in Windows 10 Pro. However, Microsoft no longer makes disabling Cortana anywhere near as easy as it was.
(Score: 3, Informative) by VLM on Wednesday July 27 2016, @12:40PM
Hey its your lucky day. Some months/years ago I was interested in setting this up because the technology is cool. I stopped WRT social/cultural issues and also in practice it wasn't going to be useful, after all I don't use it on my phone. The tech itself is still pretty fascinating and I'm almost motivated to play with it again.
Maybe 5 years ago I used to run androidx86 which is exactly what it sounds like, android compiled to run on intel machines as an OS. Mouse instead of touchscreen (I never use multitouch anyway, ever) and nice large high res screen. I put it on an old EEEEEEPC netbook and it rocked. Anyway assuming that project is not dead just run android on a VM image and go to google play and install one of the dozens of siri clones. I wonder if you could install android cortana on an androidx86 installation on a VM on a linux box. Or just run a development style android emulator. Anyway this suggestion is run a virtual slave on android and run android one way or another in a VM.
Native linux Siri/Cortana equivalents that I know of (there's probably more) are Lucidia and Jasper (Jasper works on the pi). Lucidia had a different name in the old days and builds top down from immense to something that can run on a desktop maybe. Jasper works bottom up and is mostly installed on raspberry pi as sort of an amazon echo killer. Amazon echo basically being siri with a power cord I guess that's close enough.
So anyway there's a great steaming pile of proper nouns to google for. Best of luck
(Score: 2) by coolgopher on Thursday July 28 2016, @02:22AM
Thanks! I had a look at Jasper some months ago, but it seemed to require too much of a time-investment (and time, alas, is what I most lack these days). I do have a copy of Sirius (now apparently Lucida), but I have yet to get it running. So far that's seemed to be the most promising one though. Interesting idea about the android approach... but I'd prefer not to let google know me even more than they do - at least now someone has to piece "me" together from all of google/apple/ms due to the way I have things spread out.
Overall, I must say we do live in pretty interesting times, and I mean that in a positive way. Looking at the technology shift that my dad has witnessed over the decades so far, I'm tremendously excited to find out just what will manage to happen in my lifetime.