MikeHawthorne

Essential Member
Microsoft Community Contributor
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May 25, 2009
Messages
6,637
Hi

This has been bugging me since I started using Cortana.

Well there is finally a fix that works, not by Microsoft but by someone named Michael Chourdakis at the behest of someone named Wilson Phillips on the Windows help web site.

I tried it and it worked for me.
Cortana now knows exactly where I am.

Mike

One note, for me when I went to the Google Maps page I found that my GPS location was found in the https: bar at the top of the screen, as part of the address, (not in a box at the bottom) and that there were a couple of extra characters added to the end after a comma. Just make sure that the format looks like the sample.


Here is the post...

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Michael Chourdakis really came through for us. He made a change in his program GPSComplete. It now has the option for Fixed Location. Thanks so much Michael.

Here is a How-To

Go to Welcome to GPSDirect and GPSReverse GPS NMEA Windows 7 Windows 8 Windows 10 Sensor Driver iOS Android TCP Bluetooth and in the left hand column, click on Download.

Choose the version you need for your operating system. If you don’t know if your OS is 32 bit or 64 bit, go to Settings/System/About.

Click on the version you need. It should place a copy into your Downloads folder. Open your Downloads folder and move or copy gpscomplete64.exe or gpscomplete32.exe to wherever you would like to keep it.

Run the exe. User Account Control will ask if you want to allow this program to make changes to your computer. Click YES.

GPSComplete will now open and you click on the Sensor Driver tab in the menu. This tab will expand and you click INSTALL.

For NMEA Source Select FIXED.

Now we need the coordinates to put into the Baud/Port section.

Go to Google Maps and find your location. For this example, we will use Alcatraz Island. Zoom in and find your exact location. You can select map or earth view to help you narrow it down as exact as you need it to be. Click on the location. It should show a pin and at the bottom of the window, a box with the map coordinates. For me, I see 37.827562, -122.423887, but we cannot use them this way. We need to swap them and type them into the Baud/Port box as in this example.

-122.423887,37.827562 and click OK

You’re done. Open the Windows Maps App and you should see your location right where you set it to be. You can ask Hey Cortana, “Where am I?” and she should now know where you are.

You can close the GPSComplete program and it will be set permanently. It should stay resident as a Sensor in Device Manager until you uninstall the program.

Remember that the only part of GPSComplete that you installed was the Sensor Driver and that is not free. Please purchase the license for GPSDirect from ttp://www.turboirc.com/gps7/

Thanks Michael.

That was a great thing to do for the Windows 10 Community.
 


Hi

Just came back to say that this works for me, but the last part about setting up the location has to be done every time I boot my computer.

I put a document on my desktop that has the Coords in it so it only takes a few minutes but I would be nice to have it stay set during a reboot.

The process....

Open GPS Complete, Uninstall the Sensor Drivers.

Then do the Install process, pasting in the GPS coordinates from the document.

Then open the Microsoft Map App, confirm your location before asking Cortana.

Interestingly, the map app shows my exact correct address, but when I ask Cortana the street numbers are a couple of houses off.

Mike
 


Hi Again.

I've discovered that if I open the Map App, right after I boot my computer, my location shows up first in the wrong location and then quickly switches to the correct location.

Added after the original post...
I've discovered that you need to click on your actual locations which is shown on the map.


Once I do that Cortana reports my correct location except for being a couple of house numbers off.

If I don't do that first, then she will continue to show the wrong location.

Mike
 


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Hey Mike, you may have skipped over some pertinent information?

Do you have a GPS device of some type? How is it connected? Is this a phone?
 


Hi

No GPS device that's the problem.
This is my PC which never moves.

Cortana doesn't know where you are at unless it gets a GPS coordinate, on phones and tablets it works OK.

This process lets you enter a GPS coordinate for a stationary computer so that Microsoft Maps, and Cortana know where you are.

After boot up I'm finding that I can now open the Map App, and it will show both my actual location and the one that Windows defaults to.

By clicking on my actual location on the map, I'm telling Windows where I'm actually at and then Cortana will answer things in relation to my actual location instead of on the other side of the county.

Some people are having Windows tell them they are in another state, so this will enable them to get local weather, locations etc.

Mike
 


I asked Cortana where I was and it opened a map and showed me in the same place the Map app does. The Map app will allow for an address to set your position, so I will try that next. Right now it is using the Internet location based of one of Provider's devices.

Edit: I see what you mean, I haven't found a way to change the home location in Cortana.

I am wondering if it might be some sort of security thing. If the region is set correctly, it should at least be within 7 miles or so.
 


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Hi

According to what I've read, if there is no GPS coordinate it defaults to the location of your service provider.
In my case on the other side of the county, (though I don't know why it shows it in a cemetery).

For some people apparently this can be in another state.

So far the only way I've found to fix it is to follow the instructions from the message I posted at the top.

And I have to remember to open the Map App and select my home every time.
The Map App still shows the cemetery as the default location, but it also shows my home location.
If I click on that, it then makes that the default home location, and Cortana will tell me where I live correctly when I ask her.

The odd thing is that she gets my home address off by a couple of houses and not always the same one.
This is weird because the Map App shows my address correctly every time.

Here's a link to the discussion on the Microsoft help site.

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/...ndows-10/a5f5a0f9-2b21-4658-9b92-97519667be06

Mike
 


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