Cortana opens by itself ???

davidhk · 11 Jun 2018

Win 10 Home ver 1803 build 17134.81

Lately when I sign in to my computer and leave it idle, Cortana will open by itself...….in Full Screen. Not immediately and I did not time when it started.
It is in close proximity to my TV, and I usually have my TV turned on most of the time. No sure if this fact is relevant or not.
Not a big deal, I can always click the X at top right to exit Cortana.
Just wonder if this happens to anyone else, or is my laptop possessed ?

Cortana opens by itself ???-cortana-opens-itself.jpg

Plankton · 11 Jun 2018

If you have cortana setup and active......then my guess would be as your guess is......TV activation but still very odd indeed.

PS
With my Cortana....I don't have a camera or mic connected, I literally have to click on the mic icon in Cortana to activate it when I use my headset. 99% of the time, I never have the need for Cortana and usually turn all that off.

davidhk · 11 Jun 2018

It happens again.
Just now after visiting this forum. I signed out, and left it in idle.
There was a message at the bottom but it disappeared too fast. Didn't even have time to read it. (English is my 3rd language. I don't read English fast.)

davidhk · 11 Jun 2018

I caught it again. This time with all the text shown...……

Cortana opens by itself ???-cortana-opens-itself-words.jpg

Plankton · 11 Jun 2018

Well.....apparently you need eggs the next time you go out........LOL!

Sorry, couldn't pass that up......very strange. Are you sure that your system is free of any and all bugs? What about missing/corrupt system files?

davidhk · 11 Jun 2018

No. As far as viruses are concerned, my machine is clean. Windows Defender is the only one running. No other 3rd party AV programs.
SFC also reports no violation. This machine has just been "repair-installed" 3 days ago.
The only reason I did a repair install was because there was this annoying popup saying that it was installing a new update and followed by another popup saying that something had done wrong and unable to install the update.
I checked the Update History. there was no mention of failed updates.
This annoyance was so prevalent that I decided to do a repair install. That fixed the popup issue.

Plankton · 11 Jun 2018

I would run Malwarebytes, Ccleaner, Malwarebytes Adware cleaner, and Superantispyware just to be safe and sure.

I wonder if you install media is corrupted.....which has been known to happen. If this was mine, I would grab another copy of windows 10 with the MCT and do a clean install. Other than that, I'm fresh out of ideas.

davidhk · 11 Jun 2018

This similar scenario actually started last year, but somehow seldom reported.
I do not find any solution, but based on a reply from one of those threads, I am going to disable Cortana lockscreen and see if that is the culprit.
Copy of the said reply...……….

Cortana opens by itself ???-cortana-...-lockscreen.jpg

Turning off Cortana lockscreen……..

Cortana opens by itself ???-cortana.....-locked-screen.jpg

davidhk · 11 Jun 2018

So, I turned off Cortana's lockscreen > reboot.
I left the machine idle for 18 minutes. No Cortana in full screen. That's good news.
Now I just initiated "hey Cortana", and she replied " That's me". That's normal.
Now I'll leave the machine idle again. We'll see if Cortana stays silent.

davidhk · 11 Jun 2018

No. Same issue persists.
I give up. Time to turn off Cortana. I rarely used it anyway.

Update : Cortana is disabled via registry. One less annoyance.