How to Disable Cortana in Windows 11 – Guide

Windows 11 is the latest major version of Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft, announced on June 24, 2021 and is the successor to Windows 10, released in 2015. It includes major changes to the Windows Shell affected by canceled Windows 10X, including a redesigned Start menu, replacement of its “dynamic tiles” by a separate “Widgets” panel on the taskbar, creating sets of side-by-side windows.

The Microsoft Windows 10 operating system has been designed to be more flexible and customizable than ever before. This includes the addition of a new group of technologies called " gaming technologies inherited from Auto HDR and DirectStorage." These include Internet Explorer (IE), Chromium-based Microsoft Edge, and Microsoft Teams. In addition, Microsoft has announced plans to allow more flexibility in the software that can be distributed through the Microsoft Store and to support Android apps on Windows 11. This will make it easier for users to find and use the best software for their needs.

Disable Cortana from startup (temporarily) in Windows 11

By default, Cortana launches up automatically when you boot your system. If you don’t want Cortana to run until you manually enable it, you can disable it from within Windows. First, open Windows 11 Settings, select the ‘Applications’ tab on the left and click on the ‘Applications and features’ option on the right. In apps and features page, scroll down the list of apps, click the three-dot menu next to the ‘Cortana’ app, and select ‘Advanced Options’. On the Cortana app page, scroll down and disable the toggle on the ‘Run on login’ option. Restart your computer to confirm changes. Now Cortana service will be disabled when your PC starts up. ..

Disable Cortana from startup via Task Manager

To disable Cortana from the Windows startup applications, right-click on the Windows Start button and select “Task Manager” from the menu bar. In Task Manager, open the “Startup” tab, right-click on “Cortana” and select “Disable” from the context menu. You can still run Cortana manually whenever you want by searching for it in the Windows search bar or pressing Windows logo key + C. ..

Disable Cortana through the app on Windows 11 (temporarily)

To disable Cortana temporarily, follow these steps:

  1. Open the Cortana app on your device.
  2. Type “settings” in the top left corner of the app and then click on it.
  3. Scroll down to the “activation” section and click on the “disable” button next to “Cortana”.

Open Cortana by searching for it in Windows search and clicking on the result.

In the ‘Settings’ menu, click on the ‘Privacy’ tab. Under the ‘Privacy’ tab, click on the ‘Content Settings’ button. In the ‘Content Settings’ dialog box, under the heading ‘Site Content’, click on the radio button next to ‘Enable site content blocking for specific sites and domains’. Then, under the heading ‘Block Sites and Domains’, select the sites and domains you want to block. ..

In the ‘Keyboard shortcut’ section, click on the ‘F5’ key.

Disable the ‘Keyboard Shortcut’ option on your PC and restart it to apply the changes. This will prevent Cortana from being activated by mistake using the keyboard shortcut.

Now, on the Settings page, select the ‘Microphone’ option.

This link will allow you to control how microphones are used in your project. You can choose to allow all microphones to be used, or only certain microphones.

Cortana is a voice assistant that is built into many of the devices we use, like phones and computers. To disable its microphone access, you can scroll down the list of apps and turn off the ‘Cortana’ toggle.

To turn off microphone access, go to the Settings page and select the ‘Voice Activation’ option. If microphone access is not already turned off, voice activation will be turned off as well. ..

If you want to use voice activation on your device, you’ll need to set it up. This link will show you how.

On the voice activation permission page, turn off the toggle next to ‘Cortana’. Now Cortana will not respond to the ‘Cortana’ keyword.

Cortana will not be accidentally activated. But you can still manually run it in apps. When you want to use Cortana again, be sure to re-enable these permissions before doing so.

Disable Cortana Permanently via Windows Registry

To disable Cortana on your computer, you can use the Registry Editor to do so. By disabling Cortana via the Registry Editor, you will not be able to use the feature even when you try to run it manually.

  1. Open the Windows Registry by clicking on the Start button and typing “regedit” in the search box.
  2. Once the Windows Registry is open, click on the “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE” key and then click on “Software”.
  3. In the Software key, double-click on “Windows NT” and then double-click on “Registry”.
  4. In the Registry window, click on the “Edit” button and then click on “New”.
  5. In the New window, type a name for your new registry key (for example, “System”) and then click on OK.
  6. Double-click on your newly created System registry key to open it.
  7. In this key, you will see a number of subkeys (for example, HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services).
  8. To change a setting in Windows OS, you need to edit one of these subkeys (for example, HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\W32Time).
  9. To do this, double-click on the subkey that you want to edit (for example, HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\W32Time) and then enter your desired value in the “Value” field (for example, 3).
  10. Click on OK to save your changes and close the Registry window. ..

Then type ‘cmd’ and press Enter. Now type ‘netstat -an’ and press Enter. The output will show you the network connections and their status. If there are any problems, the output will include information about the problem and how to fix it.

In the Windows Registry Editor, type the following key and press Enter: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon In the Winlogon subkey, type Shell and press Enter. In the Shell subkey, type C:\WINDOWS\system32>regedit.exe /e /s “Shell=%windir%\system32” and press Enter. ..

Windows 10 includes a new Registry Editor that makes it easy to manage your settings and preferences. ..

C:\Windows\SysWOW64 tdll tdll.dll In this directory, you will find the following files: tdll.dll kernel32.dll user32.dll gdi32.dll winmm.dll These files are used by the Windows operating system to function and are essential for many tasks that you may perform on your computer, such as opening programs and accessing data.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon “Userinit”=“C:\WINDOWS\system32\userinit.exe” HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion “Winlogon”=“C:\WINDOWS\system32\winlogon.exe”

Then type ‘0xFFFFFFFF’ into the ‘Windows Search’ folder, right-click on the ‘ DWORD (32-bit) Value’ and select ‘Copy’.

AllowCortana.xls

After opening the ‘AllowCortana’ file, make sure Base is set to Hexadecimal and Value Data is set to 0. Then select ‘OK’.

  1. Open the Start menu and click on ‘Control Panel’.
  2. Under ‘Appearance and Personalization’, click on ‘Folder Options’.
  3. Under the ‘Search Providers’ tab, make sure that the ‘Windows Search’ box is checked. If you don’t see the “Windows Search” folder in your Windows directory, do the following:
  4. Open the Start menu and click on “Control Panel”.
  5. Under “Appearance and Personalization”, click on “Folder Options”.
  6. Under the “Search Providers” tab, make sure that the “Windows Search” box is checked. ..

Windows 10: How to create a new key for secure storage ..

New Key #1 = Windows Search

Right-click on the ‘Windows Search’ folder, select ‘New’ and select ‘DWORD (32-bit) Value’. Then name the new file “AllowCortana” and set the value data to ‘0’ as shown above. Restart your PC to apply the changes.

Cortana is disabled.

If you’ve decided to enable Cortana, go back to the registry editor, navigate to the same folder as above, and set the ‘AllowCortana’ value data to ‘1’.

Permanently disable Cortana via Group Policy Editor

  1. Open the Local Group Policy Editor by pressing Windows key + R, and type gpedit.msc into the open box.
  2. In the left pane, click on the Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\Windows Components\Cortana node.
  3. On the right pane, click on the Disable Cortana button.
  4. Click on OK to close the Local Group Policy Editor.

Open the Local Group Policy Editor by pressing Win + R. Then type gpedit.msc in the box and press Enter to open the Group Policy Editor.

Windows 10: Open the “Gpedit.msc” file from the “C:\Windows\System32” folder.

The following is a guide on how to change the language of your device. To change the language of your device, follow these steps:

  1. Open the Settings app and navigate to the Language section.
  2. Scroll down and select the desired language from the list.
  3. Click on the Change button to make your changes take effect.

Search in Windows Components

This will open the Cortana settings in your device. You can then enable or disable Cortana by changing the setting to ‘No’ as shown below. If you enable Cortana, she will start talking to you even when you’re not looking at her.

To disable Cortana, follow these steps:

  1. Open the Settings app on your Windows 10 device.
  2. Click on the System icon.
  3. Under “Personalization”, click on “Allow Cortana”.
  4. Select “Off” from the drop-down menu next to “Allow Cortana”. Click “Apply” and then select “OK”. ..

You can now close the Group Policy Editor and restart your computer. If you want to re-enable Cortana, go back to the same setting as above (Allow Cortana) and change the setting to ‘Not Configured’ or ‘Enabled’.

Uninstall Cortana from Windows 11

Microsoft still doesn’t allow users to uninstall Cortana like other native apps. However, if you have decided to get rid of Cortana for good, you can do so with the help of PowerShell commands.

To uninstall Cortana, open Windows PowerShell in Windows Terminal as an administrator. To do this, right-click the Start icon and select ‘Windows Terminal (Admin)’ from the context menu.

To open Windows PowerShell with administrator privileges, you can either type “powershell” in the Start menu search bar or click the Windows PowerShell icon on the taskbar. ..

cortana uninstall

netstat -a | grep “Cortana” This will show the active connections and ports on your computer, as well as the status of Cortana. If you want to remove Cortana for a specific user, type the following command and press Enter: netstat -a | grep “Cortana” -t user This will show the active connections and ports on your computer for the user named “user” only.

Cortana will be removed from your Windows 11 PC, and you will not be able to use her features.

How to Reinstall Cortana on Windows 11

If you want to use Cortana again, you can get it back on Windows 11 at any time. Restoring Cortana in Windows 11 is much easier than disabling or uninstalling it. You can easily download and install it from the Microsoft Store whenever you want.

To open the Microsoft Store, search for “Microsoft Store” in the Windows search bar. In the Microsoft Store, search for “Cortana” in the search field and select the Cortana app in the result. ..

To use Cortana, you first need to install it. Once it’s installed, you can use it again. ..

Final note

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