I disabled Cortana but it still runs

Question

I have disabled Cortana in a number of different ways, including Settings, Registry, and Group Policy. Yet it still runs and hogs memory:

I see this post, but it's not very helpful.

Answer 1

The post you linked only appears not to be helpful, but the answer, while not accepted IS the correct answer.

"Cortana" is the friendly name given to the built-in search function of Windows 10. While many of its features can be disabled, such as the cloud, voice control, and other things, search itself is baked into the OS (as it has been since Windows 95, I think).

While you're seeing "Cortana" and thinking it's the voice search assistant thingy, in this case all you're seeing is the standard built-in search functions that are required for OS function.

Answer 2

Windows Search is embedded in Cortana. If you don't mind disabling Windows Search indexing, which can be replaced by third-party tools such as DocFetcher and Agent Ransack, you can stop Cortana completely.

• Press Windows, type cortana and click the Settings (gear) icon.
• Turn off Cloud search, **My device history* and then Clear my device history.
• Press Windows, type regedit and select it.
• Navigate to (or copy and paste the following into the location bar) : Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows
• Right-click the Windows key, select New > DWORD (32 Bit) Value and name it AllowCortana. It should default to 0 [zero], which should disable Cortana after a reboot.

However, if you just want to disable Cortana voice and web interfaces, it is easier to use a third-party tool such as ShutUp10.