How to enable and/or disable Cortana on a Windows PC
Let's see how to enable (and disable) Cortana on a Windows PC after the initial setup.
Cortana is Microsoft's answer to Google Assistant, Apple's Siri, and more.
It can help with making appointments, sending emails, finding places, finding rides, etc.
However, there are people on both sides of the fence.
Jack: Cortana didn't strike me as a good idea when setting up my Windows PC. But after a few weeks I wanted to try it, but I couldn't find it anywhere. Denis: I was very happy to use Cortana to improve my productivity. But I hardly used it. I tried to remove it but I don't know how.
Enable (or disable) Cortana
So we're here to help both groups and see how to enable/disable Cortana. While disabling or enabling this feature seems standard, it's not available in Windows settings or anything similar.
This includes group policy or registry editing, which you can easily do following this guide.
Let's start.
Please note that this will only work for personal computers with administrative rights. And you should consult your system administrator for any questions if your computer is part of a business network.
Using the Group Policy Editor
Open Windows Run by pressing ⊞+R , type gpedit.msc and press Enter.
Then go to Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Search > Allow Cortana.
Finally, select Enabled/Disabled, click Apply, then click OK.
Using the Registry Editor
Enabling Cortana is even easier from the Registry Editor.
First, type regedit at the Windows start prompt and press Enter. Then go to ComputerHKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREPoliciesMicrosoftWindowsWindows Search.
Alternatively, use the above path in the Registry Editor and press Enter to go there directly:
Then double-click AllowCortana, change the value from 0 to 1 to enable it, and click OK. To disable Cortana, change this value to 0 and click OK.
Summary
This article is about enabling or disabling Cortana after the initial installation of Windows. You can do this through Group Policy or Registry editing.
Cortana can help you complete small tasks with ease. However, many users avoid these digital personal assistants for various reasons, including privacy.
But there's no denying that these robot assistants are far from perfect, and it will be interesting to see how they shape the future of voice search.
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