Cortana is a virtual assistant bundled with Windows 10. Cortana appears as a search box or an icon on the taskbar and comes with tight integration with the Search feature in Windows 10. In recent builds of the OS, you can make Cortana listen to your voice commands when you press the Win+C keys. Here is how it can be done.
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Cortana can be very useful. For example, you can ask Cortana to look up information or even shutdown the OS using your speech. Also, you can use Cortana for simple calculations. The Redmond software giant is constantly improving Cortana and adding more and more useful features to it.
For upcoming Windows 10 releases, a new floating Cortana UI is planned along with a new taskbar pane design. The test version of the floating search bar could be enabled in Windows 10 build 17046 Insider Preview.
Cortana works best when you sign in with your Microsoft Account. To provide you with personalized experiences, Cortana collects certain data like your search queries, calendar events, contacts, and location. Besides Windows devices, Cortana can be installed on Android and iOS.
To enable the Cortana Listen keyboard shortcut in Windows 10, do the following.
- Open the Settings app.
- Go to Cortana -> Talk to Cortana.
- On the right, enable the toggle option Let Cortana listen for my voice commands when I press the Windows logo key + C under the section Keyboard shortcut.
- When enabled, pressing the Win + C keys will activate Cortana's Listening mode.
You are done.
It is possible to configure this feature with a Registry tweak. If you are managing Windows 10 for an organization or making an image for deployment, using the Registry tweak can help you to pre-configure the OS the way you want.
Disable Listening mode of Cortana with a Registry tweak
- Open the Registry Editor app.
- Go to the following Registry key.
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Search
See how to go to a Registry key with one click.
- On the right, create a new 32-Bit DWORD value VoiceShortcut.
Note: Even if you are running 64-bit Windows you must still create a 32-bit DWORD value.
Set its value to 0 to disable the keyboard shortcut. - A value data of 1 will enable the feature.
- To make the changes done by the Registry tweak take effect, you need to sign out and sign in to your user account.
To save your time, you can download the following ready-to-use Registry files.
The undo tweak is included.
That's it.
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Is there a way to remap the Windows key? I don’t even have it on my keyboard, as it messed with my games (so I physically removed it). I would like the End button to do the same function.
hi . when perform the things mentioned above , i can’t enable win key+c button to open Cortana .
can you help me with that ?