Cortana, the personal digital assistant that replaced Windows 10's search function and taps into Bing's servers to answer your queries with contextual awareness, no longer has an off switch.
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
Workarounds to disable it via GPE and RegEdit still work, but as Microsoft already set a precedent in April this year to remove some of the configuration options from Windows 10 Pro, it is to be expected that they will at some point aggressively remove even these workarounds.
With the Windows 10 Anniversary Update, the search box is now Cortana. Customers can expect the same great search experience powered by Bing and Microsoft Edge with the added benefit of Cortana's personality.
We know consumers want choice and we make it easy to customize Cortana's personalization or opt-out of Cortana's suite of personalized services. Cortana works best when you sign in, but if you choose not to, you can still use her to chat, search the web and your Windows device. If you like, you can also easily hide Cortana and the search box in the taskbar altogether.
People will find a way. Necessity is the mother of all invention. Anything declared "uncrackable" is often very quickly by passed. Makes me not even want to buy a new PC, since it would come with W10 by default.
You can't even call this an OS at this point, and they dare use the word "choice", what's going on on earth ? In the future, this age will be called the moronic age
I forgot: Happy birthday Windows 10 moron edition !
Just downoad Linux Mint and put it on a USB stick with rufus then try it out. Its very similar to windows so i dont think you will have any problems with it.
Just downoad Linux Mint and put it on a USB stick with rufus then try it out. Its very similar to windows so i dont think you will have any problems with it.
+Rep, thanks, im going into comp security here so I figured i'd be on it sooner than later, but Microsoft really seems to want to push me away quicker.
Exactly. Windows 10 is becoming one giant piece of spyware. And now there's talk about allowing people to upgrade after the July 29 deadline, but needing a Microsoft account. So then what's next, forcing users to have a OneDrive account and automatically uploading the entire contents of their pictures and documents folder to it?
Users with a large game collection probably feel like their backs are to the wall. They can't just abandon Windows entirely, and Linux has driver support issues. Wine can't run everything well.
Why can't MS see that people want control over their PCs?
Don't care about it, if there are no annoying pop ups and notifications that you should ask Cortana about anything I don't see what the big deal is, just ignore it. If Microsoft wants anything from your PC will access it whether you have Cortana enabled/disabled. And I'm sure people will find ways to disable it, I know I will look for it.
I recently tried Peppermint on an older PC, works great.
If someone wants to really have a field trip with Linux, try Slackware.
I used it for about a week, man alive I never used command prompt so much anywhere else. I still consider installing a desktop shortcut entirely through command prompt somewhat of an achievement, no matter how mundane it sounds.
When I think back, those tutorials felt like a bit of an adventure, or maybe I just have masochist tendencies, either way it's certainly "an experience".
And I like Slackware because it's totally separate from all the big distrios, one of the last "small" and totally independent strains of Linux (if you're looking for something more obscure than the regular obscurity of using Linux to begin with).
So basically it can still be turned off, just not in the way you usually would.
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