Help me "Ward Off" Cortana in its entirety!

By saurabhdua
in Tips, Tweaks & Customization

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saurabhdua

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3 minutes ago, Circaflex said:

I have no cortana on my search, nor does it respond to any cortana commands. seems like it is working.

Does the listing within Task-Manager also Confirms on the same?

 

Does there exist a No Cortana entry within it? 

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Circaflex

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The background task is running, which doesnt bother me because <40MB of ram being used has no effect on my system. I wouldn't expect it to be completely disabled as Cortana is baked into the Operating System, however it no longer shows up as a search icon, nor does the microphone for Cortana show up and Hey Cortana along with any other voice commands do not work.

 

I would advise against deleting it, or hacking your system up to remove it completely. You might end up with more problems later on when new updates come up, they might fail to install. Really, 40MB of ram should not be causing your system to stall. 

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DavidM

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Well, that's easy, it's called Windows 7 and it's the ONLY way to completely remove EVERY Cortana process running on Windows 10... but then you wouldn't be running anymore... so um, nope no way to remove Cortana from Windows 10. Cortana is baked right into Windows 10 and it (she?) is here to stay, stop wasting time and energy to solve a problem (?) that cannot be solved.

 

On my desktop right now Cortana is using 30mb, Defender is using 32mb, and DWM is using 29mb, if you look at the Resource Monitor you will see (or I saw) a program called SearchUI.exe using the same amount of resources. I'm guessing "Cortana" is the friendly name for the search process, that runs in the background to help make searching Windows faster.

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+Biscuits Brown MVC

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ok, here is the brute force method

 

  1. Shut down Windows and boot your favorite Linux distro from a flash drive
  2. Navigate to your C:\Windows\SystemApps\ folder and rename or delete the Microsoft.Windows.Cortana_xxxxxx folder
  3. Navigate to your C:\Windows\System32\ folder and rename or delete backgroundTaskHost.exe (this may be a very bad thing but its what runs the Cortana background process).
  4. Reboot back into Windows
  5. Don't come asking for help when this totally screws up your system.

 

Keep in mind that next time you get a Windows update, some or all of this will likely be undone by Microsoft.

 

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LimeMaster

Posted
Posted (edited)
4 hours ago, Gary7 said:

You wanna bet?

I tested it already. I know it doesn't work.

 

4 hours ago, Circaflex said:

I have no cortana on my search, nor does it respond to any cortana commands. seems like it is working.

Check your Task Manager. I'm sure you'll notice the Cortana processes are still running.

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Circaflex

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15 minutes ago, LimeMaster said:

I tested it already. I know it doesn't work.

 

Check your Task Manager. I'm sure you'll notice the Cortana processes are still running.

I wouldn't expect those to disappear, Cortana is baked into the operating system. It is behaving exactly like the group policy states, Cortana is disabled from search and no longer listening for commands. To me, that is disabled and working. 

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LimeMaster

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Posted (edited)
9 minutes ago, Circaflex said:

I wouldn't expect those to disappear, Cortana is baked into the operating system. It is behaving exactly like the group policy states, Cortana is disabled from search and no longer listening for commands. To me, that is disabled and working. 

Well I assumed OP wanted to disable it completely, since they want conserve RAM. Which makes sense because it looks like their machine only has 2GBs.

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Danielx64

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4 hours ago, Zag L. said:

ok, here is the brute force method

 

  1. Shut down Windows and boot your favorite Linux distro from a flash drive
  2. Navigate to your C:\Windows\SystemApps\ folder and rename or delete the Microsoft.Windows.Cortana_xxxxxx folder
  3. Navigate to your C:\Windows\System32\ folder and rename or delete backgroundTaskHost.exe (this may be a very bad thing but its what runs the Cortana background process).
  4. Reboot back into Windows
  5. Don't come asking for help when this totally screws up your system.

 

Keep in mind that next time you get a Windows update, some or all of this will likely be undone by Microsoft.

 

Or could you setup up the Software restriction policy to block backgroundTaskHost.exe from running?

 

 

Untitled.png

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Dot Matrix

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6 hours ago, saurabhdua said:

Hello +Circaflex!

 

Mine is a Single-Language HOME edition, & even the "Windows Search" service has  been Disabled to derive the anticipated outcome but to no avail!

 

Cortana continues to prey on my System resources! Mine is a Humble Windows PC with a dismal score of 3.6 against Windows Experience Index.

 

Help me get hold of this situation as a Real-Administrator rather than only a Mute-spectator! :-)

Cortana using up 40 MBs of RAM isn't preying on system resources. 40 MBs of RAM is nothing.

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+Gary7 Subscriber²

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57 minutes ago, LimeMaster said:

I tested it already. I know it doesn't work.

 

Check your Task Manager. I'm sure you'll notice the Cortana processes are still running.

You have to turn Windows Search off, I do that with Windows 10 Manager but Like I said I put it back on.

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chrisj1968

Posted
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6 hours ago, Circaflex said:

Yes, lets recover 40MB of ram! /s

 

BTW your info/topic is from LAST YEAR and might not apply to the latest update.

I thought you seemed like a fella who liked efficiency? wasting 40MB's is 40MB's at any rate. I removed Cortana from my taskbar using the registry edit. But it somehow remains on. for me.. its like my kids who leave the lights on when they leave a room. :s

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Circaflex

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28 minutes ago, chrisj1968 said:

I thought you seemed like a fella who liked efficiency? wasting 40MB's is 40MB's at any rate. I removed Cortana from my taskbar using the registry edit. But it somehow remains on. for me.. its like my kids who leave the lights on when they leave a room. :s

40 mb out of 32gb doesnt effect any sort of efficiency. Unused ram is wasted ram, so you want 40 MB free just so task manager says you have more free ram? Unless the system has less than a gig of ram, 40MB isnt even noticeable. Were talking MB here.

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chrisj1968

Posted
Posted (edited)
9 hours ago, saurabhdua said:

Does the listing within Task-Manager also Confirms on the same?

 

Does there exist a No Cortana entry within it? 

I got rid of Cortana . 

 

1. open file explorer> navigate to C:\Windows\SystemApps

2. find the Cortana folder (see screenshot)

2jebk2p.jpg

3. Rename it by adding -bak to the folder name, you'll get a an error that it is being used.. KEEP THE DIALOG box open!!! do not click anything

4. open taskmanger and click on Cortana and endtask Be quick before Cortana opens again and commit to part Step 5

5. be fast.. go back to the error dialog about folder being open by another process and click ok, yes whatever it says. (hint: keep the dialog box to change the folder name side by side with the taskmanger window).

then your folder will be renamed and Cortana will no longer be running in taskmanager

 

recheck taskmanager.. viola'! Gone!

2mgjvye.png

Edited by chrisj1968
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saurabhdua

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2 hours ago, chrisj1968 said:

I got rid of Cortana . 

 

1. open file explorer> navigate to C:\Windows\SystemApps

2. find the Cortana folder (see screenshot)

2jebk2p.jpg

3. Rename it by adding -bak to the folder name, you'll get a an error that it is being used.. KEEP THE DIALOG box open!!! do not click anything

4. open taskmanger and click on Cortana and endtask Be quick before Cortana opens again and commit to part Step 5

5. be fast.. go back to the error dialog about folder being open by another process and click ok, yes whatever it says. (hint: keep the dialog box to change the folder name side by side with the taskmanger window).

then your folder will be renamed and Cortana will no longer be running in taskmanager

 

recheck taskmanager.. viola'! Gone!

2mgjvye.png

 

So has it disappeared forever? Did you Re-start your Machine to confirm on its sustainability?

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MikeChipshop Member

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6 hours ago, Danielx64 said:

It might be to someone who only has 2GB of ram installed.

As i mentioned, when my computer is busy, Cortana idles at 1MB. I'd argue that if the guy wanted to save memory that much, he'd be better off using Cortana and uninstalling Launchy which he uses as a replacement. 

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saurabhdua

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Thank you very much to all the Contributors towards this post!

 

I have been able to resolve the issue/impediment comprehensively by following the Wonderful-Wonderful advice from Chrisj1968 & the Outcome is sustaining & guaranteed! 

 

No more Cortana's footprint getting evident within Task-manager even after System-restart!

 

All done!...& Thank you once again. :-)

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MotorMouth

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7 hours ago, Danielx64 said:

It might be to someone who only has 2GB of ram installed.

No, it would amount to 2% of the available RAM. If I offered you 2% of my ice cream, you wouldn't think I was being generous, would you?

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Mando

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Posted (edited)
7 hours ago, Danielx64 said:

It might be to someone who only has 2GB of ram installed.

thing is with W10 memory management, its a bit of a moot point, hes getting bent out of shape about something using resources that are available to it, it aint W95 anymore. IF the system needed the ram for a higher priority task, it would drop cortanas usage of the 40Mb. Ive run W10 on a Celeron 2Ghz single core with 2Gb of sys ram, apart from the higher than normal paging to disk (which considering is expected in Windows under 2Gb since W2k), it is very usable, hell W10 was designed from the ground up to be scalable from the lowest single core lumia phone, to a multi-core games desktop, his dual core AMD sys with 2Gb of sys ram is well above the lowest supported platform. 

 

Removing cortana and freeing up freeable memory from it is futile, it will just get used by another service, thats what Ram is there for.

 

As others have stated, Memory is there to be used, people need to get their heads out of the 90s, x amount of ram free means x amount of ram being under utilised. 

 

also good luck getting the next CU to install and function when it detects Cortana disabled, ill wager a bacon butty & large Latte youll be met with "oops an unknown error has occurred", at least with Chris`s solution, its easy to revert back before you patch (if you remember)

27 minutes ago, MotorMouth said:

No, it would amount to 2% of the available RAM. If I offered you 2% of my ice cream, you wouldn't think I was being generous, would you?

I would, because i hear your a greedy mofo with ice cream :p 

Edited by Mando
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Brys

Posted
Posted

I can't find Cortana on my task manager. Is that because

1 you did something in particular to see it there ?

2 I'm missing anniversary update or something

3 Since Cortana is not enabled for my regional settings it just doesn't run ?

 

If the answer is 3, then it looks like my windows search thingy still works fine without Cortana.

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