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Microsoft Says You Will Use Cortana

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

Celestial writes:

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 ikanreed on Wednesday July 27 2016, @04:49PM

    by ikanreed (3164) on Wednesday July 27 2016, @04:49PM (#380796) Journal

    What's the best way to get started with linux?

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  
    Total Score:   2  

  • (Score: 3, Informative) by LoRdTAW on Wednesday July 27 2016, @06:11PM

    by LoRdTAW (3755) on Wednesday July 27 2016, @06:11PM (#380818) Journal

    Download the Linux Mint ISO with Cinnamon Desktop.

    Flash it to a thumb drive using Rufus.

    Reboot and most PC's have a boot menu, usually F12, F11, or watch the screen during reboot and look for the option. Some laptops and desktops hide that info, google is your friend is that case.

    Select the boot from USB HDD or perhaps it will display the name of the drive like DataTraveller G4 or something.

    Play around on the live Linux desktop. Most of it is point and click. Command line comes in handy but not really necessary for basic day to day stuff.

    Want to install it? That is a whole other issue. I recommend a fresh install on the entire disk otherwise windows completely brain dead and fragile boot process will shit the bed. Backup all your stuff and take the plunge.