Completely turn Cortana off
To completely turn Cortana off, as in, it will no longer work, respond, or collect information, then you first need to open the Cortana search feature and click on the gear icon along the left-hand edge.
This will open the settings where you can turn “Hey Cortana” on or off, change your name, or, most importantly, turn the whole thing off right at the very top where it says “Cortana can give you suggestions, ideas, reminders, alerts, and more.”
Once disabled, Cortana will revert to the traditional Windows search feature, indicated on the taskbar by a magnifying glass. When you click on it, it will instead let you “Search the web and Windows” (via Bing).
You can still change the way search appears on your task bar, however, electing to show the search box, the icon, or disable (remove) it altogether. If you do decide you want to disable it, you can still access search through the old keyboard shortcut “Windows + S”.
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It remains to be seen how much of an impact Cortana will have on regular desktop users. Microsoft has carefully incorporated it without overwhelming everything else. Many new Windows 10 users are unlikely to know the full extent of what Cortana can do, so it may take time for it to be a household name.
If you have any questions or comments you would like to add, we encourage you to leave your feedback in our discussion forum.
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