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posted by cmn32480 on Wednesday July 27 2016, @06:06AM   Printer-friendly
from the over-my-dead-body dept.

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.


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  • (Score: 2) by coolgopher on Thursday July 28 2016, @02:22AM

    by coolgopher (1157) on Thursday July 28 2016, @02:22AM (#381002)

    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.

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