No keyboard input for Cortana in 1903?

It appears that since the divorce.....

Going forward, we’ll be decoupling Search and Cortana in the taskbar. ... when it rolls out to you, you’ll find clicking the search box in the taskbar now launches our experience focused on giving you the best in house search experience and clicking the Cortana icon will launch you straight into our voice-first digital assistant experience.

New Windows 10 Insider Preview Fast Build 18317 (19H1) - Jan. 16 Insider - Windows 10 Forums


...Cortana is now exclusively voice-activated, and Search no longer includes Web results.


So how do I see web results now if I search from Start/Taskbar with just a keyboard? The Mic is not available in a Hyper-V VM

Well, turns out I had shot myself in the foot years ago and it only came back to bite me when Cortana and Search went their separate ways.

The clue was that upgrading a clean install of 1809 in another VM to 1903 did include web results in Search. The first system I upgraded was a VM clone of my main machine, on which years ago I had tweaked some registry settings experimenting with disabling Cortana. Turned out that also disabled web results in Search, so I put it back as it was (or so I thought). Well, the web results returned, at least.

A side-by-side comparison of the two registries at HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Search and deleting any 'extras' that only the older machine had fixed this for me. Search now includes web results (a feature I've always found convenient).

Well, first time round I didn't take notes of exactly what I had to delete in the registry, so I had another go.

I set the VM back to a checkpoint made just before the upgrade to 1903, then repeated the upgrade. Now I'm confused, this time round Search does include web results without me having to change anything...

And to answer my original question, how do you type questions for Cortana? Well, apparently the 'separation' was amicable, she's still listening in to your search queries. But now only pops in if she has something to add, or if you start your search query with 'Hey'.

Cortana didn't rap you on the knuckles for that?

thomaseg1 said:

Cortana didn't rap you on the knuckles for that?

No, she has an amusing answer for that question - ask her yourself

Hello Bree, could you please tell me in more detail how you enabled the "Where is Siri?" response from Cortana using your keyboard input? Since 1903 (actually latest Insider) I am unable to type in reminders. It is angering me that I'd now have to fetch my headset from the cupboard just to talk to Cortana.

Example reminder query: remind me tomorrow at 9:00 to fetch bread

rplgn said:

Hello Bree, could you please tell me in more detail how you enabled the "Where is Siri?" response from Cortana using your keyboard input?

I didn't do anything specifically to enable Cortana - quite the opposite in fact. I don't have an MS account and have turned off as much as possible in Settings > Privacy.

Despite all that, Cortana could still respond with 'Let's chat' to a few key typed phrases, such as the Siri one and 'tell me a joke'. TBH, finding these little 'Easter eggs' was about all I ever used Cortana for, and I haven't even done that since taking that screenshot earlier in this thread.

Since 1903 (actually latest Insider) I am unable to type in reminders.

I have tested this and I don't think the change is down to any particular build of Windows, looks like something specific to Cortana has changed across all builds. I found that in 1803, 1809 and 1903 I am no longer able to provoke a 'Let's chat' response from the keyboard.

A lot of Cortana's behaviour is region-specific, in fact Cortana is not available in some regions. Your profile's 'Local Time' suggests that you are in the UK like me. It may be that this is a UK-specific change.

I'll continue to look into this and will report back in this thread if I find anything - but don't hold your breath, it doesn't look hopeful