How to disable Cortana

Most of Windows 10 users probably don’t use all of Windows 10 features that come with it. Cortana may be one of them. Cortana is a digital agent that hears what you say and responds to you by referencing your private data such as your contacts. I don’t know the details and please forgive me if I am wrong. Anyhow, it sounds like privacy leakage to me. I definitely don’t want an AI (artificial intelligence) robot on the  cloud to give me suggestions via recognizing my voices and my personal data.

Maybe Microsoft is trying to promote this feature and puts a female character called Cortana in the game HALO4 from (Microsoft Studio). After all, I agree that I might fall in love with Cortana who had helped me through battles against the aliens. But, in reality, I still want to know how to disable Cortana on my Windows 10 system.

Cortana, from HALO4

Microsoft Windows 10 used to allow you to disable Cortana with a switch. Now, after you apply for the Anniversary Update, the switch is gone. Microsoft doesn’t want you to get rid of it.

Disable Cortana by editing registry

Save the following codes (in green color) into a file called disable-cortana.reg and open it with Windows Explorer (requires administrator account) to disable Cortana.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Windows Search]
“AllowCortana”=dword:00000000

Save to following codes (in green color) into a file called enable-cortana.reg and open it with Windows Explorer (requires administrator account) to enable Cortana again.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Windows Search]
“AllowCortana”=dword:00000001

You may need to restart your PC after the change.

By: CJ