Fully disable Cortana

[IgorM]

I disabled Cortana on Windows 10 (it's not showing up on my task bar) but it still shows on task manager consuming ram. How to disable it once and forever?

[RadiatingLight]

not really possible

[Jasun]

that's really hard since Microsoft really likes adding random sh*t to your background tasks. try to remove cortana via PowerShell. there should be plenty of tutorials online. 

[IgorM]

It's the 3rd most ram consumer on my laptop, after chrome and superfetch, btw what is that for?

[BlueCrazii]

Wanna remove cortana Remove windows problem solved

[Droidbot]

16 minutes ago, IgorM said:

It's the 3rd most ram consumer on my laptop, after chrome and superfetch, btw what is that for?

Superfetch is for compiling a database of files on your computer for later use, like when you use the search feature. 

 

The only way to remove Cortana is to get LTSB 2016 and use that. Maybe through PowerShell?

[Cyberspirit]

@IgorM You could install a version with a different locale (if that makes sense)

I'm from Hungary and since Cortana isn't supported here it's not in windows at all.

 

What you could do is reinstall windows and at the start select something like Hungary or an other country that doesn't support Cortana and just select English as a language after.

[paddy-stone]

Prefetch is basically just for the OS to decide what progs etc you like to use and fetch items into memory before you need them, hence prefetch... it's only really useful for OS's on mech drives though. If you're running an SSD, have a look HERE. for how to disable superfectch and prefetch, which could save you some writes to that SSD.

[GoodBytes]

Cortana should be using around <100MB including all the supporting framework it uses/needs (UWP basically), based on its settings, and if you are interacting with it. Its memory consumption fluctuate, usually sits around 70-80MB when idle.

 

If you really need that 100MB to operate your system, then you REAAAALLLY should be getting more RAM. I would assume you have 1GB of RAM. I would suggest 2GB of RAM. And use a different web browser, one less memory consuming, such as Firefox.

 

You cannot disable Cortana just like that. You actually need to break it, and if course it will affect your experience with the PC, such as not having the ability to search on the Start menu, no notification sync with your phone, no reply of SMS from your PC (Android and Windows Phone only) among other things

[Cyberspirit]

3 minutes ago, GoodBytes said:

Not having the ability to search on the Start menu

There is just a normal search bar in my Windows (Though probably because Cortana isn't supported here)

[Tsuki]

5 hours ago, GoodBytes said:

You cannot disable Cortana just like that. You actually need to break it, and if course it will affect your experience with the PC, such as not having the ability to search on the Start menu, no notification sync with your phone, no reply of SMS from your PC (Android and Windows Phone only) among other things

so thats why the search feature on my computer stopped working

 

i really wish they hadnt integrated cortana so hard into the OS.

should have kept win8 search and added cortana for everything else, and just allow her to use the search function.

[Delicieuxz]

I don't know if this disables it completely, but in Enterprise, Cortana can be disabled in the Group Policy editor. I have it disabled on my PC running Win 10 1703. Apparently, it's the same in Pro.

 

Alternatively to using the Group Policy editor, it can also be disabled by adding a registry keyword called AllowCortana: https://www.ctrl.blog/entry/how-to-disable-cortana

 

In regards to disabling the Cortana Group Policy, I wouldn't say that disabling it breaks anything, but it might stop some features from being used. I haven't noticed any missing functionality so far, though the only search I use is in the start menu - and that still works.

 

Here's what the Cortana policy in the GPE says:

 

Quote

This policy setting specifies whether Cortana is allowed on the device. 
 
If you enable or don't configure this setting, Cortana will be allowed on the device. If you disable this setting, Cortana will be turned off. 
 
When Cortana is off, users will still be able to use search to find things on the device.

 

 

Here's a guide on various methods to disable Cortana on 1703: