cortanawindows-10-v1607
The Windows 10 Anniversary Update appears to have killed Cortana. How do I bring her back?
The search screen is the old, standard one, and the search icon is a magnifying glass instead of the Cortana circle.
Cortana settings let me choose language but reports a region mismatch even though both are the same. There are no other Cortana-specific options there.
To disable Cortana, start regedit.exe, go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Windows Search, create a new 32-bit DWORD value here named AllowCortana and leave its value data as 0.
After a reboot you see the Cortana Logo is gone and the local search opens:
if this also doesn't disable web search, set the value BingSearchEnabled to 0 under HKEY_Local_Machine\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Windows Search
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_Local_Machine\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Windows Search]
"AllowCortana"=dword:00000000
"BingSearchEnabled"=dword:00000000
The Windows.old folder contains the files from previous OS or version, and is used when the user wants to rollback to the previous OS or Windows 10 version. This folder automatically clears in ~30 days after you upgrade to Windows 10.
If the folder was created when you installed version 1607 (Anniversary Update), the folder might be removed automatically in 10 days.
If Windows doesn't clear the Windows.old folder for some reason, you may remove it it manually using Disk Cleanup (cleanmgr.exe - run as administrator), and clearing Previous Windows installation files.
Recovering data from Windows.old
If you find some of your settings are lost after upgrade, you should be able to recover the program specific data files from Windows.old (ProgramData and AppData folders). Move everything you need, to a different folder outside Windows.old before clearing it out.
Best Answer
Thanks to a Microsoft Answers thread
The registry value
BingSearchEnabledin the keyHKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Searchneeds to be set to1.Run the following in
cmd:Or use
regeditto navigate to the same key and set the value.I suspect this specifically affects those who updated from a system where they had web search disabled. If you wish to continue using Cortana, apparently you must enable that option now.