Microsoft will make Cortana mandatory in Anniversary Update

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Executioner
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Microsoft will make Cortana mandatory in Anniversary Update

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http://www.techspot.com/news/65766-micr ... entsOffset
Microsoft’s Windows 10 Anniversary Update is arriving soon and along with a raft of new features and deeper Cortana integration. In fact, the virtual assistant is set to replace the standard search function altogether in the upcoming software update, and users will no longer be able to disable Cortana after the Anniversary Update.

“With the Windows 10 Anniversary Update, the search box is now Cortana," Microsoft said in a statement. "Customers can expect the same great search experience powered by Bing and Microsoft Edge with the added benefit of Cortana’s personality.

Currently, Windows 10 users can disable Cortana from within the Settings menu, limiting the search bar to scanning files, folders, and apps. With Cortana enabled you also get web searches, notes, reminders, voice commands and so on. Of course this also requires access to more of your personal information and data.

Understandably some users are upset that Microsoft is forcing Cortana on them -- on top of removing Google as an option for web searches and also making the Windows 10 Anniversary Update mandatory. That said, if you really don’t want Cortana for some reason, you can still hide the virtual assistant or limit the information it has access to.

According to Microsoft you can opt-out of Cortana’s suite of personalized services, use it to search the web without losing in or hide Cortana and the search box in the taskbar altogether. You can also head to Start> Settings> Privacy> Speech> Inking & Typing and toggle an option called 'Stop getting to know me', which stop it from learning your typing inputs.
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Re: Microsoft will make Cortana mandatory in Anniversary Update

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It's only going to get worse from there.
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Re: Microsoft will make Cortana mandatory in Anniversary Update

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Meh. Article sounds like link bait.

You CAN hide Cortana and not use it, and if you're not logged into an MS account (and anyone who's a techie who has privacy concerns shouldn't be) it's not linked to a profile of you.

Trust me, there WILL be a way to kill it . Enterprise customers have to be able to disable it for security, via Active Directory or Group Policy, or the registry, and I'm sure that privacy tool from one of the security companies will include it. Last thing you need in an Enterprise environment is local file search queries being broadcast outside the Intranet, and MS can't afford to alienate Enterprise customers.

Wait and see. Here's a more responsible article:

How to disable Cortana on Windows 10's Anniversary Update:
http://www.techradar.com/us/how-to/soft ... te-1325547
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Re: Microsoft will make Cortana mandatory in Anniversary Update

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This is rather humorous: Cortana will be completely unavailable on the educational version of Win 10.
Windows 10 Education is billed as offering the “enterprise-grade manageability and security desired by many schools.” Microsoft recommends it “ … to all K-12 customers as it provides the most complete and secure edition for education environments.”
As the always snarky Register puts it:
To summarise: Microsoft now believes the most secure and education-friendly versions of Windows it can make omit both Cortana and its own Windows help features. Make of that what you will.
LOL!

I bet this is what they'll also offer as an option for Enterprise customers. And I bet someone figures out how to turn a standard Win10 install into and educational version. Any bets it's just a few registry changes?

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/07/28 ... l_editions
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Re: Microsoft will make Cortana mandatory in Anniversary Update

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I'm not 100% sure but I think Classic Shell also bypasses Cortana when you use it's search bar, but I'd have to check. Right now I have Cortana disabled and use Classic Shell so I pretty much see the same Win7 style search bar in my Win10 PCs.
One thing the Register announced today (and keep in mind the Register is the 'Weekly World News' rag of the tech industry, so take it with a grain of salt) is that MS is also making ads in the start menu mandatory for all but enterprise and education versions with the anniversary upgrade, but we'll see. That's only inferred by someone looking at the policy editor settings in a preview build, and there's no word on whether you could work around that with the registry. And using Classic Shell would bypass that as well since you'd never see the tiles.

I use Classic Shell on both my Win10 PCs. I really can't stand the new start menu.

However all this crap is why I decided to install Win 8.1 on my workstation. That's still a very basic and clean OS by comparison if you don't log in with an MS account. I don't mind Win10 on my laptop and gaming PCs but I don't need all the 'social' crap on my main workstation. And yeah, it's annoying that MS can just push this crap out anytime they want. I suspect smart people will always figure out hacks around it though. I know people who have uninstalled all the MS store apps on their PCs. I don't think that's necessary, but you should have the right to do what you want with your PC.

I may buy a few extra Win 8.1 licenses when I get a chance. That will cover me for the next 7 years. After that, we may all be running Linux or BSD. :)

What I'd like to see is Enterprise licenses, or easy upgrades to them, offered as options for small business PCs with Win10 Pro. Right now buying Enterprise licenses is not simple for a small business - you have to buy them in volume. I'd like to see Dell offer them as an option in their business line pre-installed. Small businesses don't need (and for security shouldn't have) all this crap in there. That may actually be Microsoft's strategy - make small businesses pay for Enterprise licenses to get a cleaner version of Windows. That USED TO BE what Pro was for.

Oh, here's the article on the group policy for blocking start menu ads seeming to be disabled in Win10 Pro, from the guy who spotted it:
http://www.ghacks.net/2016/07/28/micros ... ws-10-pro/
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Classic Shell avoids Cortana in Anniversary Build

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Ok, playing around with Anniversary build, and yes you can't turn off Cortana BUT if you install Classic Shell, then you get the normal search box back that only searches for files and apps, and doesn't do a Cortana search. So no brainer to use Classic Shell, especially if you dislike the tiles Start menu as much as I do:

In both cases I did a search for "Texas".

The default Win10 search box offered up games from the MS Store and Bing search links:
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The search box in Classic Shell's start menu offered nothing because nothing on the system has the word "Texas" in it.
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A search for "Windows Update" in Classic Shell does find what it normally does, so it IS working:
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Re: Microsoft will make Cortana mandatory in Anniversary Update

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And as I predicted, it can still be turned off. Despite the FUD, you can still disable Cortana via LOCAL Group Policy (what they disabled was the ability to allow an admin to disable it on an entire corporate network via group policy - they want you to buy Enterprise for that).

http://www.howtogeek.com/265027/how-to- ... indows-10/
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Re: Microsoft will make Cortana mandatory in Anniversary Update

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Now if they'd just allow us to get Windows Updates the same way we did on W7, that would be nice. I hate the all or nothing mentality.
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Re: Microsoft will make Cortana mandatory in Anniversary Update

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Yeah, I have to say that's my biggest problem with Win10, and the reason I'm sticking with Win8.1 on my workstation. I do take the time to read up on each major update, and I rarely do optional ones unless it's relevant.

I also defer updates a few weeks to make sure no one is reporting any problems.
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