How to Properly Disable Cortana in Microsoft Windows 10

NONE even with 10586. I first upgraded to 10586 and it came back but I got rid of it.
No down side. Running like this several months although I have reinstalled a couple times but I put back everything I am doing.
Wifi when I have used it is fine. No problems here at home

I now have uninstalled everything including Store when I went to 10586 and my system for last 2 weeks hasn't run better since I put this 10 on. I have Pro but basically have an Enterprise version uninstalling ALL. I know where I work a very large Fortune 500 they won't allow none or most of that junk on the Start menu when we do switch, usually several years behind. We know the way upgrades come about slow in the Enterprise.

If I could buy an Enterprise version that's what I would do.

 

I agree it isn't an ideal situation, but clearly Microsoft has no desire to play nice and allow us to uninstall items we don't want.

As for the error message in the above post, that may be the result of removing Cortana but the thing is, those same errors are ever present in a brand new fresh install of windows ten too, so what's the excuse for that?

I monitored the event viewer before taking out Cortana and it's flooded with 10001 and 10010 event errors. It's the same story on three different PC's all done as a clean install as opposed to an upgrade, yet when browsing the web some indicate the latest version of Win 10 fixed start menu and Cortana errors. Not!

Trying the group policy route doesn't do much as Cortana and Cortana Background Process are still active in Task Manager.

This is Win 10 Pro 64 Bit build 10586 FWIW.

Linux Mint is looking more and more attractive each day.

 

I followed the instructions but in the Local Group Policy Editor under Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Windows Components -> there was no Search folder, so couldn't continue.

Thanks
Chris

 

Thanks Josephur

I followed your instructions, having to create the "Windows Search" key under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows with Value "AllowCortana" REG_DWORD 0x00000000 (0)

Rebooted, killed Cortana in Task Manager but it still came back.

 

Hey, that's got it! Thanks a lot Josepur. A pox on Microsoft and their invasive software!

 

thanks

 

All I do on machines is right click taskbar and then where you see "Cortana" just click "hidden" and you will never know it is there.

 

While that is quite true very few of us ever even barely tap the resources of the systems we are running so I wouldn't worry about it. I worry more about mistakes screwing around in the registry by users who don't belong doing that.

 

OK maybe not the best choice of words on my part, and point made.

 

Not to mention that since the Tech Preview days, Ms. Cortana is very sensitive. Great story here: when I was working with Mike on first getting Cortana to talk, my wife heard her talking to me on my test computer, and she said "who the heak is that you are talking to?"! I had to explain, and it took me 6 months to get her to talk to me again.

<<<BIGBEARJEDI>>>

 

Pretty funny Marc.

 

Yeah, Rich!

 

This is a message for Josephur

I would like to completely remove Cortana from my system.

I have an audio system - or two.
it used to work really well under Win-7
it was a little compromised in terms of performance with the 'Free' update of Windows 10
And now both systems are completely useless now Anniversary has come along.

One system is a 6core overclocked at 4.2
The other is an 8 core laptop at 2.9khz
All with SSD's

My problem is that when Cortana tries to send information to an external server - it interrupts my PC - as seen in the resource manager
Only for a fraction of a second - but long enough to totally un-sync all of my audio
USB, audio buffers and disk access are temporarily suspended
And therefore it is completely impossible to work

I'm going to roll back to Win-7 over the weekend
But if you have an aggressive hack - could I possibly try that as a solution?

I have tried the group policy
the registry hack
And also the firewall rule - which was the most successful
This worked really well for 4 hours - and allowed me to get some work done

But as soon as I enabled the internet to deliver material
My machine has been compromised again - and M$ have found another way to interrupt my machine.

I have disk images of pre and post Anniversary - which forcibly installed itself 9 days ago
I have kept these for comparison
I have rolled back - but Cortana in it's new SearchUI / Latest Cortana incarnation - simply re-spawns as the Anniversary edition.

Any help to rid my system of this awful utility - would be very welcome.

Many thanks,

Dave

 

That's great info - Thank you
Even if Everyone Deny has unintended consequences - it can't be an worse than th unintended and unwanted consequences of Anniversary.

I had tried TakeOwn (Take Ownership) as my first attempt - to cut and paste the Cortana files into a different folder - but that was soon foiled and re-spawned - and then TakeOwn couldn't take ownership of those files anymore.

The idea to restore productivity to full capacity is to get 3 fully working Win-7 Audio systems up and running - and keep them well away from the internet.

Again - thank you so much.

Dave