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You Can't Turn Off Cortana In the Windows 10 Anniversary Update (pcworld.com)

Posted by msmash on from the things-Microsoft-does dept.

Microsoft will release Windows 10 Anniversary Update next week. Earlier this week we listed some of its best features. PCWorld is now reporting about a major change that may annoy some users: once you've installed the update, Cortana can no longer be disabled. From the article: Cortana, the personal digital assistant that replaced Windows 10's search function and taps into Bing's servers to answer your queries with contextual awareness, no longer has an off switch. The impact on you at home: Similar to how Microsoft blocked Google compatibility with Cortana, the company is now cutting off the plain vanilla search option. That actually makes a certain of amount of sense. Unless you turned off all the various cloud-connected bits of Windows 10, there's not a ton of difference between Cortana and the operating system's basic search capabilities.

7 of 369 comments (clear)

  1. O RLY? by GameboyRMH · · Score: 5, Funny

    Challenge accepted!

    --
    "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
  2. How to disable Cortana by bagofbeans · · Score: 5, Informative

    Courtesy Martin Brinkmann

    http://www.ghacks.net/2016/07/26/you-will-use-cortana-says-microsoft/

  3. Re:Can't disable? Then I will break it by LichtSpektren · · Score: 5, Informative

    or install Windows 10 Enterprise LTSB, which got none of this nonsense.

    Easier said than done, Microsoft doesn't sell Windows Enterprise off the shelf. You have to negotiate a licensing plan with them.

  4. As a UNIX head and former MS-hater . . . by mmell · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Y'know, Microsoft has never made any bones about their OS being a proprietary system. Whether you agree with their choices or not, you're bound by them when you use their OS. Problem is, there is a lot of appeal to their OS - nearly universal familiarity among the user base (which is large), nearly ubiquitous applications (especially in the office/business space), pre-installation (something like $50.00 a shot, as opposed to ~$175, so I guess that hurts less) . . .

    You want an OS that works your way? Tell ya what - get a bunch of your fellow technically-oriented geek friends together and make your own! (Actually, I'm sure this has been done. I think such systems are called "GNU Linux"?) Otherwise, as long as they don't outright break what they sold you, you can deal with MS's heavy-handed management of your systems. Frankly, with all the moaning about MS security and unpatched MS OS's in the wild, how did everyone expect them to respond? They're still the de facto business OS of choice and their primary customer is extremely security conscious. MS is listening to the bucks, not the users. Since their software is proprietary, that is as it should be. Unless you actively find a way to prevent it, Microsoft pretty much insists on their right to make every licensed MS OS instance reasonably uniform. That way, both security and reliability can theoretically be maximized for the entire user base.

    In short - deal with it or run something else. Just don't expect Microsoft to waste any time or money trying to do things your way unless you're big business with big bucks.

  5. Re:It didn't have an off switch before by LichtSpektren · · Score: 5, Informative

    In some ways this is more honest, it's been demonstrated that the OS will talk to 107 domains whether or not some switches are toggled in the Control Panel to give the illusion of privacy.

    Any list of those so I can set them to 127.0.0.1 in my Hosts file?

    Here you go: https://github.com/WindowsLies...

    However it won't work because Windows bypasses its own hosts file for its own purposes. You'll have to block it from your router or other external firewall.

  6. Re:It didn't have an off switch before by TroII · · Score: 5, Informative

    Any list of those so I can set them to 127.0.0.1 in my Hosts file?

    That won't help you any, the IP addresses are hard-coded into the OS via dnsapi.dll, which Windows 10 will consult prior to the rest of the resolver stack (hosts, WINS, name servers, etc). You're going to need another machine between you and your internet connection, one with a proper implementation like iptables/ipfw/nftables/etc to drop traffic destined for those IPs.

    Of course, the IPs of the telemetry servers are subject to change at Microsoft's whim, so you're going to end up stuck playing whack-a-mole. Me, I'm just not going to install Windows 10.

    --
    "If there was a gay Afro-Puertorican Linux distribution, I'd give it a try" ~lucm
  7. Re:Not running Windows 10 seems like a total fix by macxcool · · Score: 5, Informative

    I agree. We bought a little Acer E3-111 for my wife with Windows 8.1 awhile back. It worked just fine. We had some problems with the touchpad recently and I figured, why not upgrade to Windows 10. We've both regretted that decision. It run slowly, and every few days there's new reasons on Slashdot and elsewhere not to run Windows 10. A few days ago I booted Linux Mint 18, Mate edition from a USB stick. Firefox (my wife's preffered browser) started so quickly we were startled and everything was very smooth. I looked at the hits on my firewall/proxy server from her IP and they were down to almost nothing. I'll be upgrading her to Linux this weekend.