Cortana is a Computer Assistant on Windows 10. Think Clippy + Siri for the modern age. Some people, such as myself, prefer not to use Cortana either for privacy reasons, to free up system resources, or any other number of reasons This short tutorial will show people with any version of Windows 10 how to completely disable Windows Cortana using the Registry Editor (regedit).
Step 0: You need to be logged in as an administrator for this to work. If you're not logged into an administrator account, do that before proceeding (or you won't get very far).
Step 1: Click the Start button, type "regedit" and click the result. The icon should be some little blue boxes.
Step 2: If prompted by User Account Control, Click YES.
Step 3: Navigate to HKEY Local Machine / Software / Policies / Microsoft / Windows / with the little arrows beside the string
Step 4: Double-Click Windows Search folder if you see it in the Windows folder. If the Windows Search folder isn't available, right click Windows and go to New / Key and name the folder "Windows Search"
Step 5: In the blank space on the right, right-click and select New / DWORD 32 bit. Name the new value AllowCortana and press Enter. Notice that Windows Search is two words, but AllowCortana is one word. This is essential.
Step 6: If the value doesn't set itself to 0 by default, double-click it and change the value to 0, make sure it's on hexadecimal, and press OK.
Step 7: Logout and log in or restart your PC for these changes to take effect.
That's it! If you prefer to watch a video of how this is done, I've linked it below. Thanks!
[video="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZYrzlEL_2g"][/video]
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