To completely shut down Cortana in Windows 10, multiple steps are required. 1. Disable Cortana's boot in Task Manager and turn off its background operation permissions in Privacy Settings; 2. Uninstall the Cortana application through the PowerShell command; 3. Change the search options in the taskbar settings to disconnect integration with Cortana; 4. Modify the registry to prevent Cortana from being re-enabled due to system updates. Before operation, you need to back up the registry to avoid risks.
Cortana is a voice assistant that comes with Windows 10, but many people don’t use it. Instead, they think it occupies resources and disturbs cleanliness. There are actually several key steps to completely turn it off. You can't just click on the settings.

Turn off Cortana startup and background operation
The first thing you can do is turn off Cortana automatically running when the system starts, and limit its background activity.
Open the Task Manager → Start tab → Find Cortana → Right-click to select Disable.
Also, in Settings → Privacy → Backstage Apps, find Cortana and turn off the option to allow it to run in the background.
After doing this, Cortana will not start itself as the system is powered on, nor will it sneak up and eat memory when you are not using it.
Completely disable the Cortana app itself
If you are sure you don't know how to use Cortana at all, you can uninstall it directly from the system.
However, it should be noted that Windows 10 natively does not provide the graphical interface option to directly uninstall Cortana, and needs to be operated with PowerShell.
Open PowerShell (Administrator permissions) and enter the following command:

Get-AppxPackage -allusers Microsoft.549981C3F5F10 | Remove-AppxPackage
This line of command will delete Cortana under the current user. If you want to delete it under all accounts, additional processing is required.
After execution is completed, the Cortana icon in the Start menu should be gone.
Close the search bar integration with Cortana
Even if you don't want to delete Cortana completely, you can just disconnect it from the taskbar search box.
Right-click on the taskbar → “Taskbar Settings” → Find the “Search” option → Change to “Taskbar Icon Only” or “Close”.
The effect of this is to retain a simplest search function without the Cortana interactive interface.
If you just hate it pops up and interrupts the work, this method is enough.

Prevent Cortana from re-enablement (advanced)
Sometimes, after the system is updated, Cortana may return to its default state.
To avoid this, further locking can be done through the registry.
Open Registry Editor → Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Windows Search
If this path is not available, it needs to be created manually. Then create a new DWORD value, name it DisableWebSearch
, and set it to 1
.
You can also add another value, AllowCortana
, set to 0
, to prevent Cortana from being re-enabled.
These operations have certain risks, and it is recommended to back up the registry before modification.
Basically these are the methods, just choose according to your needs. Some steps may seem a bit complicated, but it is not a big problem to follow them step by step.
The above is the detailed content of How to disable Cortana on Windows 10. For more information, please follow other related articles on the PHP Chinese website!

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