How to disable Cortana digital assistant in Windows 10

One of the key highlights of the Windows 10 upgrade is the Cortana personal assistant, which was previously available for Windows Phone users only.

Powered by Bing, Cortana enables you to search content on your Windows 10 device, OneDrive as well as the web. Her natural language ability helps avoid misunderstanding and lets users interact by typing or talking. She learns the user's preferences and offers quick access to information, while making recommendations personalised.

But not everyone will like Cortana's intelligence. All the information fed to Cortana travels through the Microsoft server.

Microsoft has provided the ability to disable the feature and thereby erase the user's footprints in its server. Don't know how to disable it? Check the following steps for help:

• Open Cortana

• Click the Notebook icon located at the left-hand side

• Select Settings from the list. You will be represented with a number of options

• Slide 'Cortana can give you suggestions, ideas, reminders, alerts and more' option to off. Disabling the feature removes all locally stored data

You may consider wiping out data from Microsoft's server, as the data has been synchronised to the cloud. To perform wiping task:

• Click 'Manage what Cortana knows about me in the cloud' option

• Your browser will open to personalise settings page in Bing

• Click Clear button under 'Clear personal info' then 'Other Cortana Data and Personalised Speech, Inking and Typing' section

If you have allowed Cortana to access your location information, then wipe data from Bing Maps as well. Likewise, you can also clear data from other Microsoft services.

If you are concerned about the data shared with Microsoft and want to personalise the settings navigate to Start>> Settings>> Privacy. Also check Sync your settings under Start>> Settings>> Accounts.

Source: PCWorld