Windows 10 anniversary update pushes Cortana

[frankgrimes]

Since today is the last - thank god - day of the free Windows 10 update and the anniversary update is right around the corner this news may be concerncing to some.

http://www.extremetech.com/computin...disabled-in-the-windows-10-anniversary-update

Microsoft has decided that Cortana, its personal digital assistant, is so useful that you’ll never be able to disable it going forward. While Cortana has received a variety of upgrades in the Anniversary Update, and now supports multiple languages, deeper integration with calendars and applications, and can remember random facts about you, it can’t be flatly shut off any longer.

Microsoft has confirmed that this behavior is intention and is the result of integrating Cortana directly into Microsoft’s search box. With the Windows 10 Anniversary Update, the search box is now Cortana,” Microsoft told PC World. “Customers can expect the same great search experience powered by Bing and Microsoft Edge with the added benefit of Cortana’s personality.”

You can still disable Cortana’s ability to collect information, stop her from collecting data about you, or connecting to various applications. Her behaviors, in other words, can still be controlled, including whether or not she listens for your voice, how much information she collects, and how personalized your own search results are. What isn’t controllable, going forward, is turning Cortana off and just using a “standard” Windows search bar. From this point forward, Cortana and search are the same thing.

I've bolded the most important parts and personally believe this is another reason why I will never ever update to Windows 10, I'd rather go full Linux Mint or even MacOS (no that's not meant as an insult!). I get it MS needs Cortana to collect as much data as possible and phone as much as possible home to their servers but honestly? Telling users what they can and can't disable? That's disgusting.

Anyhow I did some research and found some tricks how you can still disable Cortana:

Windows 10 PRO:
Open gpedit.msc - Configuration - Administrative Templates - Windows Components - Search for "AllowCortana" dc on it and turn it of

Windows 10 home (works for Pro too obviously):
Open regedit.exe - accept the UAC - now go to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Windows Search - locate "AllowCortana" and set the value to 0 (zero)

All the credit for those solutions goes to: http://www.ghacks.net/2016/07/26/you-will-use-cortana-says-microsoft/

So basically you can still turn of Cortana, it's just more tricky for no real reason other that MS wants to push another Service on you. Obviously I would like to know what Bill Gates is thinking of such shady decisions.

Please keep in mind that future updates could reset all those settings to enabled so you might have to do the same thing again. If it's still possible I'd recommend writing a small bashfile for this procedure.

 

[Shirasaki]

Starting from Windows 10, windows update is not possible to be turned off through easy to find and easy to use control panel options.

Now we need group policy editors to turn off Cortana!

Glad Microsoft still has huge enterprise market and windows server would possibly never bring Cortana as it is completely a gimmick for server.

I use windows 10. But I will soon become extremely reluctant on next major windows update. Windows 10 enterprise should be able to last long enough before being forced to update to a future version.

Edit: Windows 10 professional Group Policy Editor will soon become a "decoration" rather than actual tool.
http://betanews.com/2016/07/28/windows-10-anniversary-update-takes-back-control/

 

[keysofanxiety]

Cheers Grimey

I've encountered a world of issues with Windows 10. A load of random bugs when we're deploying identical images to identical systems. Bitterly frustrating. Off the top of my head here are a couple:

High Resource Usage/Disk getting hammered for no reason.

Start Menu>Settings>System>Notifications & Actions>disable 'Show tips about Windows'

Windows Explorer crashes/restarts when creating new folder on desktop or opening zip files

Extensive list of things we've tried; DISM repairs, etc. The only fix is to create a new user account.
[doublepost=1469793608][/doublepost]

Starting from Windows 10, windows update is not possible to be turned off through easy to find and easy to use control panel options.

Yep, you should have seen my confusion when first typing wuapp into the Run box said it couldn't find anything...

 

[frankgrimes]

I think the forced updates stuff has to be one of the dumbest decisions ever for an OS. Especially given the fact how "ready" some of the updates were/are. The excuse "security" is so stupid, every worthwile third party Antimalware coupled with a good firewall will work better than MS own Windowsdefender - so no need here also.

I really wish MS would stop pushing their services and just make them better so people would actually want to use them.

I use windows 10. But I will soon become extremely reluctant on next major windows update. Windows 10 enterprise should be able to last long enough before being forced to update to a future version.

I think the Enterprise version should have an option to turn of updates completely doesn't it?

 

[Shirasaki]

Yep, you should have seen my confusion when first typing wuapp into the Run box said it couldn't find anything...

One reason why I ALWAYS choose to use enterprise version of Windows starting from Windows 8, even though I theoretically can only legally acquire it through Microsoft volume licensing service, which is pricy for almost any individual.
I started using windows server 2008 r2 when windows 7 came out as it was more capable and I could add a lot of enterprise features for personal use. Only thing missing was Bluetooth, which was not what I care because I had no computer with Bluetooth at that time yet. Once Microsoft introduces windows server 2016 I will jump the ship and say good bye for customer Windows 10.
[doublepost=1469794367][/doublepost]

I think the Enterprise version should have an option to turn of updates completely doesn't it?

Yes. But even that option cannot just completely remove windows update from system like what previous windows version did. The best it can do is to disable "automatic check and download and install updates". I already have it enabled and now my PC laptop restarts once per month if not even longer. I am more than happy with it.

 

[997440]

SNIP
Edit: Windows 10 professional Group Policy Editor will soon become a "decoration" rather than actual tool.
http://betanews.com/2016/07/28/windows-10-anniversary-update-takes-back-control/

Thanks, for this.
I hope that the people who've been defending Windows 10's feature of mandatory, automatic updates on the basis that you can avoid it through different means, note this story. MSFT can, and possibly will, thwart any efforts to bypass their OS lockdown strategy. For better or worse (I think the latter), their intention has been clear. It's best to be honest about it.

 

[frankgrimes]

Thanks, for this.
I hope that the people who've been defending Windows 10's feature of mandatory, automatic updates on the basis that you can avoid it through different means, note this story. MSFT can, and possibly will, thwart any efforts to bypass their OS lockdown strategy. For better or worse (I think the latter), their intention has been clear. It's best to be honest about it.

Well this seems like the great new Windows as a service world doesn't it? MS wants your money and they want to decide how you are going to use your own computer, that's unbelievable. Not only will this behaviour backfire badly it will also be the start of another lawsuit against them, not that they care because MS has just too much money but man they are really trying to push it.

Starting from Windows 10, windows update is not possible to be turned off through easy to find and easy to use control panel options.

Now we need group policy editors to turn off Cortana!

Glad Microsoft still has huge enterprise market and windows server would possibly never bring Cortana as it is completely a gimmick for server.

I use windows 10. But I will soon become extremely reluctant on next major windows update. Windows 10 enterprise should be able to last long enough before being forced to update to a future version.

Edit: Windows 10 professional Group Policy Editor will soon become a "decoration" rather than actual tool.
http://betanews.com/2016/07/28/windows-10-anniversary-update-takes-back-control/

Thank you for that news deserves it's own thread in my mind, so might as well create one? Now forced updates, forced cortana and the next step is removing features from the professionel version? Wow they are really going out of their way this time.

 

[Shirasaki]

Well this seems like the great new Windows as a service world doesn't it? MS wants your money and they want to decide how you are going to use your own computer, that's unbelievable. Not only will this behaviour backfire badly it will also be the start of another lawsuit against them, not that they care because MS has just too much money but man they are really trying to push it.



Thank you for that news deserves it's own thread in my mind, so might as well create one? Now forced updates, forced cortana and the next step is removing features from the professionel version? Wow they are really going out of their way this time.

MS knows well conventional customers would not go all out and acquire enterprise version windows 10 using extremely pricy MSDN subscription, or through volume licensing service. So theyd like to push it to all conventional customers and slowly screw them up. And those customers are just like frogs staying in warm water, which will eventually be killed when water gradually go warmer and eventually hot enough to kill frog.

I don't mind opening a new thread.

 

[997440]

Well this seems like the great new Windows as a service world doesn't it? MS wants your money and they want to decide how you are going to use your own computer, that's unbelievable. Not only will this behaviour backfire badly it will also be the start of another lawsuit against them, not that they care because MS has just too much money but man they are really trying to push it.

MS knows well conventional customers would not go all out and acquire enterprise version windows 10 using extremely pricy MSDN subscription, or through volume licensing service. So theyd like to push it to all conventional customers and slowly screw them up. And those customers are just like frogs staying in warm water, which will eventually be killed when water gradually go warmer and eventually hot enough to kill frog.

I don't mind opening a new thread.

According to Martin Brinkmann, at ghacks, this change goes beyond gpedit to also include effective registry editing.

Professional editions of Windows 10 ship with the Group Policy Editor that enables users and administrators to make changes to the default configuration of the operating system.

Up until now, policy availability was more or less identical for all professional versions of Windows 10. Turns out, this is no longer the case when the Windows 10 Anniversary Update is released.

Some policies contain a note stating that they only apply to certain editions of Windows 10, with Windows 10 Pro not being listed as one of them.

Note: This setting only applies to Enterprise, Education, and Server SKUs

Furthermore, the corresponding Registry keys are not working either anymore which means that Pro users have no option to make changes to features affected by the change.
.....

http://www.ghacks.net/2016/07/28/microsoft-removes-policies-windows-10-pro/

 

[craig1024]

Thankfully I don't have to deal with this in Ireland its not available.

 

[Shirasaki]

According to Martin Brinkmann, at ghacks, this change goes beyond gpedit to also include effective registry editing.

http://www.ghacks.net/2016/07/28/microsoft-removes-policies-windows-10-pro/

That's why I use Enterprise/Server SKU windows starting from windows 7 era.

 

[frankgrimes]

That's why I use Enterprise/Server SKU windows starting from windows 7 era.

Smart move but it still shouldn't be necessary there is no way MS can get away with this. Some users want control and they don't have a business so no enterprise version other than a pirated one.

with the update now over I think a lot of people are happy, no more Windows 10 nagscreens ...till the next free offer.