has anyone found any use for cortana ?

Bazz said:

Well the main thing is are you going to use her and if not turn her off, although turning her off don't stop her from running, you have to stop her from running, she's like a nagging wife on your cpu and ram although you have your ear plugs in you can't hear her but she is nagging in the background using up your cpu and ram.

She can be deleted completely in safe mode by taking ownership of her folder.

I do use it in Edge:





:)

Bazz said:

NO I stopped her running 30 mins after upgrade all she does it take up your CPU.

What method did you use? If you end the Cortana process in Task Manager it immediately respawns, exactly like a virus or other form of malware (which Windows 10 is preloaded to the brim with). If you use an elevated Powershell to "uninstall" Cortana (which doesn't truly uninstall anything), it won't do it:

PS C:\Windows\system32> Remove-AppxPackage Microsoft.Windows.Cortana_1.4.8.176_neutral_neutral_cw5n1h2txyewyRemove-AppxPackage : Deployment failed with HRESULT: 0x80073CFA, Removal failed. Please contact your software vendor.(Exception from HRESULT: 0x80073CFA)error 0x80070032: AppX Deployment Remove operation on packageMicrosoft.Windows.Cortana_1.4.8.176_neutral_neutral_cw5n1h2txyewy from:C:\Windows\SystemApps\Microsoft.Windows.Cortana_cw5n1h2txyewy failed. This app is part of Windows and cannot be uninstalled on a per-user basis. An administrator can attempt to remove the app from the computer using Turn WindowsFeatures on or off. However, it may not be possible to uninstall the app. NOTE: For additional information, look for [ActivityId] c378a2d6-da4a-0000-d8a7-78c34adad001 in the Event Log or usethe command line Get-AppxLog -ActivityID c378a2d6-da4a-0000-d8a7-78c34adad001At line:1 char:1+ Remove-AppxPackage Microsoft.Windows.Cortana_1.4.8.176_neutral_neutra ...+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ + CategoryInfo : WriteError: (Microsoft.Windo...l_cw5n1h2txyewy:String) [Remove-AppxPackage], IOException + FullyQualifiedErrorId : DeploymentError,Microsoft.Windows.Appx.PackageManager.Commands.RemoveAppxPackageCommand

Again, exactly like malware. Whoever originally wrote that error message; did he write the part I placed in bold with a straight face? Did I somehow end up in the Twilight Zone? Since when it is "not possible" to uninstall a non-critical application in an operating system? Of course, if you're writing malware, "impossible to uninstall" is ideal.

In any event, I took ownership of the C:\Windows\SystemApps\Microsoft.Windows.Cortana_cw5n1h2txyewy folder, and then I denied everything to "ALL APPLICATION PACKAGES", "SYSTEM", and "TrustedInstaller". That fixed Cortana's wagon. "She" tried to respawn 3 times in a row, each time lasting only a second before being automatically shut down, and then in a last ditch effort she tried to respawn under a different name ("Cortana Background" something or other, instead of just "Cortana"), but she was snuffed out again, and stayed gone:



She's a tenacious little piece of malware, but Microsoft forgot to give her the power to trump NTFS permissions.

fracking4oil said:

I do use it in Edge:





:)

Well my post was not for you then enjoy her, can you get her to talk dirty to you?

calvin said:

i'm using a desk top without a mic and all i can see is that its an overhyped search and its kinda lousy at that !!
I can do the same thing it does with my yahoo search ...what am I missing ?

I don't know what you find over-hyped. It works exactly as described.

To completely remove cortana you need to boot into safe mode then find her folder C:/Windows/SystemApps/Microsoft.Windows.Cortana_cw5n1h2txyewy and If you never want her again take ownership of the folder and delete, or just delete the file that is running in your task manager, I can't remember what it's called I deleted it.

Beware this also removes your search ability.

It was the first thing I disabled after I upgraded, followed by the Action Center.

By the way, as pointed out previously, removing the Cortana folder also removes the ability to search from the Start menu or the Task bar, but you can still search for files from within any File Explorer window.

Bazz said:

To completely remove cortana you need to boot into safe mode then find her folder C:/Windows/SystemApps/Microsoft.Windows.Cortana_cw5n1h2txyewy and If you never want her again take ownership of the folder and delete, or just delete the file that is running in your task manager, I can't remember what it's called I deleted it.

You would only need to boot into safe mode if you can't get her to stop running in normal mode. I used NTFS permissions to prevent her from running, so I could delete the whole folder without booting to safe mode (I renamed it instead).

Beware this also removes your search ability.

You mean the one on the task bar? I don't care about that one; I hid it as soon as I installed Windows 10. The only search I care about is the standard files and folders search in Explorer, and that still works fine without the "help" of Cortana.

fracking4oil said:

Haven't tried that, but I did ask her if she'd have sex with me. lol

Her reply in the preview builds were "I will need further compatibility upgrades to do that".

But now she just says "nope" or "I don't think I can help you with that".

Edited:

I love it however not enough to keep her

MaximRecoil said:

You would only need to boot into safe mode if you can't get her to stop running in normal mode. I used NTFS permissions to prevent her from running, so I could delete the whole folder as-is.



You mean the one on the task bar? I don't care about that one; I hid it as soon as I installed Windows 10. The only search I care about is the standard files and folders search in Explorer, and that still works fine without the "help" of Cortana.

YES it was a bit of a chow stopping it then deleting the file so safe mode where she don't hang out was the easiest option to send her to the big speech therapist in the sky.