Cortana is yet another feature, that you wouldn't turn on, if it was off by default.
I don't truly understand the goal of Cortana, other than "Apple has Siri". Some of the person assistant features seems handy, but do you really need to talk to your computer? The only place where it seems like something I'd need is when cooking and want to look up a recipe.
Microsoft efforts would have been better spend improving the built in search.
You don't need to talk to use Cortana. I had Cortana disabled until the Anniversary Update came. If you don't agree to letting it see your emails/calendar/personal stuff, it will become a limited version of itself (in fact, it didn't prompt me about it until I actively tried to do something that needed it). I was OK with letting that limited version enabled, and thought I would still not use even that.
A few days ago, however, I had to set a five minutes timer. It was much easier to press the Windows key and type "set a timer for five minutes" than to go search for whatever app is responsible for timers. I find the "grandma-friendly command line" part of Cortana much more useful than the voice control part, and I can see why it comes enabled by default. I mainly use Linux and wish I had something like that in my KDE desktop (the Alt+F2 command bar is similar, but nowhere close).
Yeah, but I don't have Google mapped to a keyboard key, but even if I did, googling for "5 minute timer" (and similar variants, like "1 minute timer" or "30 seconds timer") yields the usual search results for me. At least Cortana is (at least since the Anniversary Update) consistent with what features it offers to each user, unlike Google which will randomly not present those built-in tools. And since I can't try it, I'm wondering: to use Google's timer, do I need to leave the tab open until it ends? Because in that case it's nowhere as nice as Cortana, which just goes into background...
I just tried it, and it seems to me like it shows the timer only on google.com, not on the Google-domain for my country, so maybe that was a factor. The other comment pointed out more inconsistencies, though, so might really just be Google's algorithm judging at random who's allowed to get a timer and who not.
DuckDuckGo's implementation [0] seems more robust to me, but if you don't use it as your default search engine, it's probably easier anyways to just click on the first link in the Google search results (or use Cortana obviously).
And yeah, you do need to leave the tab open until it ends. I don't see that as that big of a flaw as you do, since most people have a browser open all the time anyways, but yeah, whatever floats your boat. Certainly isn't terrible to have another option for it.
Indeed DuckDuckGo's timer appears to be quite nice, I have it as my main search engine but didn't notice it had that. It's probably a recent addition. I agree that having to keep a browser tab open is not much of an issue, but for longer timers (hours) that can be an issue (although for that case, alarms are better suited... but then you need an alarm app, and while Cortana and Google Now will AFAIK set the alarm on their respective platforms, DuckDuckGo has no "platform" to do it...).
My dad, at 78, uses it a lot. Like most seniors he doesn't feel comfortable using a PC and Cortana eases that discomfort. It somehow makes the computer seem a bit more friendly and usable. I know it sounds bizarre but for someone who started using computers at 70 makes a lot of sense.
I find it very useful and would most definitely turn it on. It will also become a lot better in the future when software is integrated with it (office coming in the next update).
The "spying" has been greatly exaggerated, I think, by people who suddenly found themselves without a reason to hate on Microsoft and it was the obvious choice.
Considering that Microsoft's Privacy Statement now asks for complete access to all data on your computer, I cannot see how any privacy concerns should be too exaggerated.
What's so terrible about Microsoft having complete access to all data on my computer? I am pretty sure that's a massive exaggeration (could you back up that claim?), but for the moment I'll assume it isn't.
So what? Why should I be worried and/or scared? For reference, I am not a White Anglo-Saxon Protestant, and actually come from a group that tends to be (in my opinion) unfairly painted in people's minds.
I kind of like the idea of Microsoft having access to all of my data. Maybe one day in the future, people will be like..."hmm...you know that random group X that we generalized in order to hate on? turns out we can't really generalize them so easily -- we even have data to back it up!"
I'd be like a primary source in future archaeology!
I don't think, I have to explain that your stance on privacy is not the norm, at all, and that other people can very realistically have a different stance, i.e. a major problem with Microsoft (and the NSA and whoever else is involved) sifting through all of their data.
"Finally, we will access, transfer, disclose, and preserve personal data, including your content (such as the content of your emails in Outlook.com, or files in private folders on OneDrive), when we have a good faith belief that doing so is necessary to:
1. comply with applicable law or respond to valid legal process, including from law enforcement or other government agencies;
2. protect our customers, for example to prevent spam or attempts to defraud users of our products, or to help prevent the loss of life or serious injury of anyone;
3. operate and maintain the security of our products, including to prevent or stop an attack on our computer systems or networks; or
4. protect the rights or property of Microsoft, including enforcing the terms governing the use of the services - however, if we receive information indicating that someone is using our services to traffic in stolen intellectual or physical property of Microsoft, we will not inspect a customer's private content ourselves, but we may refer the matter to law enforcement."
"Access, transfer, disclose, and preserve" is what I summarized as "complete access", as that is everything you can do with data, except maybe destroy it, but that doesn't make much sense in a privacy-context.
And then "when we have a good faith belief that doing so is necessary", that's the part where you sign away the rights for Microsoft to do that whenever the fuck they want.
I mean, they list a few points, for what it would be necessary, so you might be able to make a case in court, that Microsoft could never have had that good faith belief for one of those points, but then one of those points is "protect the [...] property of Microsoft". And without a doubt would Microsoft have a good faith belief that selling your personal data is necessary to protect their property.
And google has Google Now. Amazon has Alexa. I think if you want to be competitive in the OS world, you'll probably need something like this. The real problem is how heavy handed MS is with pushing its features.
>but do you really need to talk to your computer?
On mobile, yes, considering Win10 is also a mobileOS. In desktop mode you would just type in the cortana box if you prefer.
I also imagine there's a larger vision for Cortana. The product is pretty half-assed right now but I could see it being used for a lot of admin functions we're used to via control panel or hotkeys. It would be nice to say, "Cortana switch the display to the wireless projector" or "Cortana, update the nvidia driver."
Remember that scene when Scotty scoffs at the 20th century computer you couldn't talk to in The Voyage Home? Of course we want to talk to our computers. I want to order it around, not hunt and peck through menus and control panels or try to find something with endless swipes. People like to talk and give orders. As technology becomes more featureful, we'll be using a voice a lot more. I know I do already with Google Now on my watch and Alexa at home.
> On mobile, yes, considering Win10 is also a mobileOS.
On mobile, still no, because none of them actually work properly. And didn't the mobile division recently shut down?
> I also imagine there's a larger vision for Cortana. The product is pretty half-assed right now but I could see it being used for a lot of admin functions we're used to via control panel or hotkeys. It would be nice to say, "Cortana switch the display to the wireless projector"
In exchange for losing the discoverability that projectors are indeed supported. It'll also be wonderful to have to Google for exactly how to word it so that Cortana will actually parse it correctly.
> or "Cortana, update the nvidia driver."
At this point I wouldn't be surprised if the next update completely removes the ability to do this...
> I think if you want to be competitive in the OS world, you'll probably need something like this.
This. We still don't have a half decent, open source desktop AI assistant - The only kind that I would trust to access my personal data - GNU/Linux (Ubuntu?) has to catch up a little bit here.
Cortana is opt-in as well. When you first setup/install/boot Windows 10 there's a screen titled "Meet Cortana" where you can choose "Not now". When you first setup an iOS device it walks you through first setup and there's a very similar screen titled "Set up Siri". Android doesn't have such a screen.
The difference between them is that Microsoft uses an Dark-Pattern to obscure the "Not now" option by placing it off to the left in normal font styling where as the "Next" button is a proper button.
Agreed, I guess I'm refering more to the 'dark pattern' used in the Windows 10 upgrade prompt and the occasional nagging to activate Cortana if you've disabled it. I believe the large "feature" updates like anniversary, 1511, etc reset a lot of settings, including Cortana's nag screen.
I'm not sure if Google and Amazon are this bad. MS really is buying deep into dark pattern warfare against its users. I think its valid to complain about it.
There's definitely a dark-pattern there, in fact Microsoft uses them quite a bit in Windows 10 to get you to enable a new feature that you wouldn't otherwise. It's not new though, so I'm probably just conditioned to expect it. The setups for all their OSes have had a screen or two like this but it's generally for more mundane things like enterprise features or something.
I have not experienced any nagging to activate Cortana on any of the 7 devices I have it installed on. I disabled Cortana during the setup screen on each and that was the end of it.
Now a recent update added the Search button back on tablets that you can't get rid of, which is annoying, but Cortana still isn't enabled. If you click on the button it's just the bog standard Windows Search. Someone mentioned this was part of the Anniversary update but neither of my tablets have enough drive space to perform the Anniversay update but I still have the search button in the task bar. Either way it's lame.
There are a lot of people with very poor typing skills. It's a nice idea, and speech recognition is just now getting good enough to allow it. Google has also put a speech to text button on their search boxes.
This is not Star Trek. Speech recognition isn't nearly as productive as typing with a keyboard or clicking the mouse, so apart from people not being able to type or click, nobody really 'needs' speech recognition. It's a gimmick.
Sometimes, I put something in the freezer for a quick (30 mins) cooldown. Me being me, I'll forget about it aso soon as I close the freezer. I've lost several beers that way.
Now? "Ok Google...set timer for 30 mins." Much quicker than unlocking, finding the Clock app, and fat-fingering the time widgets. This also works for reminders and a host of other things.
You're a code monkey who sits at the keyboard all day? Most people have to get to a desktop, but would rather pull out a mobile device to get the job done.
Of course coders have made progress at using dictation:
Like I said, you lack imagination. Also, no one said you need to use speech for every task. It might simply help with RSI so you don't end up like this:
Also, most people aren't coders. Designers, for example, might be using Photoshop with a Wacom tablet and would like to not have to use a keyboard. "New layer" "Layer hide" " "move layer up/down". "Text tool. Change text to San Francisco regular 16 point "
Great, now we just need walkthroughs to turn off all the other hidden features. How do I disable the feature where it's recording my games all the time, invisibly, just in case I push a hotkey to save it? I've also heard that it sends screenshots back to MS every few seconds and at this point that doesn't even seem like a crazy conspiracy theory.
Thanks. Do you know of a way to do this without an Xbox account?
Edit: Also in the general tab, disable "share clips and screenshots by default". That's not as bad as automatically taking screenshots, but it's still awful.
Has anybody found a way to fully disable the lockscreen? I don't wanna upgrade unless I can fully disable it. I've tested a couple of solutions on another PC, but it seems like it doesnt work on reboot or on the first boot.
The lock screen bugs me too but that's what's stopping you from upgrading? If that bugs you, you're going to be driven insane once you run across everything else you can't turn off. I know first-hand, I permanently moved to Linux last week because of it.
I use(heavily tweaked) xubuntu as my main system and windows 10 for gaming. That's why the lockscreen bugs me a lot. It's gonna be annoying every time I boot to windows.
Sorry, I didn't say it properly - by completly disabling I meant the fact that even with some of the tweaks the lockscreen kept appearing before the login screen(e.g. after reboot). But I wanna keep the login screen while disabling the lockscreen.
It's improved somewhat over the last few releases, but it still freezes up for several seconds with absolutely no feedback that it registered my keypress. On my laptop this still takes >5 seconds. Also the fade-in animation takes some time, during which the password field is visible but I can't type in it. I have to type my password twice almost every single time. It needs to be more responsive that it is unlocking, and more definite about when you can start typing. Or... they could just get rid of it.
I am not certain what GP is referring to, but I suspect the lock screen's Spotlight feature is what is being referred to. Not the ability to lock a session itself.
I simply use MSMG Toolkit over at MDL forums, remove all the packages I don't want prior to installing from ISO.
No cortana (warning: no start menu searching either), no modern apps (you can intergrate calc.exe), no store, defender, remove alot of telemetry, one drive, etc.
It's a readable .bat file, and all the executable dependencies are either from microsoft (dism, etc) or offer source code and/or hashing.
At some point you have to trust something, whether it be your software or your hardware.
Besides the telemetry stuff, it's not a trust issue. I just don't have a need for any of the packages I remove. I don't need cortana and search, I don't need Windows Defender and it's cloud features, I don't need onedrive, xbox, modern apps, etc. It's my choice, so I remove them.
> You don't trust Microsoft ... but trust some random .exe from a forum?
Perhaps the level of run-this-binary trust is about the same for both sources, but he trusts the motivation of the random-forumer more than those of Microsoft?
So many throwaway accounts. Anyway. You can probably achieve the same effect with the Remove-AppxPackage Powershell commandlet if you really want. I will also note that this "toolkit" is not just a bat file and also includes lots of cab files and other things as well.
These kinds of toolkits have existed since Windows 7 at least (NLite and friends). Some are the equivalent of putting go-faster stripes on your car, some actually work, some do things like https://twitter.com/SwiftOnSecurity/status/75879678600154726...
Seems to be just fine (for my use). I wouldn't recommend it to everyone of course. If things break down the road I'll just reinstall. I've been running since initial W10 release without issue however. YMMV.
There are issues such as no more start menu search because of removing cortana. It's all about what you personally need.
Thanks, but it's just a throwaway user name I won't use after this post.
It seems the HN crowd (and zdnet and EFF) are all missing a very important point: with the anniversary update (rolled out last week) Cortana is now much much less intrusive. For example, you don't need to have GPS enabled att all time in order to use Cortana.
So all in all, Microsoft seems to be on the right track regarding privacy. It is not moving very fast but at least it is moving to the right direction.
I don't truly understand the goal of Cortana, other than "Apple has Siri". Some of the person assistant features seems handy, but do you really need to talk to your computer? The only place where it seems like something I'd need is when cooking and want to look up a recipe.
Microsoft efforts would have been better spend improving the built in search.