Cortana Removal?

Hi

You can disable Cortana but not fully remove and a process is left over at times, but it will not do much, kinda similar to other non used processes that Windows has running that we really dont need for our specific usage of the OS.

Two routes and depends what Windows 10 version you have

Pro/Enterprise
Enter Group Policy (gpedit.msc) and then navigate to Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Search and then locate Allow Cortana and double click to open properties then click Disabled > Apply, close Group Policy, next right click Start and choose Command Prompt (admin) and type gpupdate /force which will update the Group Policy list, open Task Manager and find Cortana and right click End Task

Home
As Home does not have Group Policy then a small registry edit is needed (can do same in Pro if wanted), so only do this if your happy with editing the registry and also back it up. So type in the search box regedit and then navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Search and do you see an entry called CanCortanaBeEnabled and change its value to 0

Then need to see if you have an entry called AllowCortana here HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Windows Search and if not copy the below to a notepad file and then click Save As and choose All Files in the dropdown, call it something like DisableCortana.reg (enter the .reg extention at the end) then save and then double click the resulting file to add to the registry (if you wish to reverse the process just add 1 to the end of the dword number below, save again and run to enter into registry.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Windows Search]
"AllowCortana"=dword:00000000​

Just be careful with the above as disabling Cortana is likely to disable the search function in Windows, so no searching for a file on your HDD, plus editing the registry and Group Policy can have strange effects on other components and software that rely on this application.

 

Yes do not see why not as Everything will add its own search index of your files.

I know that some folks are working on how to fully disable Cortana, maybe a difficult job, you can restrict it with the above also I'm sort of thinking a route to take would be knowing what outgoing connecting it makes to then block that telemetry.

 

I agree with you but we have folk that think Cortana is still active and in some respects it is still a background app, me I actually like Cortana and use it more on my w10 phone

 

It will come back with any Windows update in general as well as process is likely to still be running, worth a try though.