Cortana is personal assistant available in Windows 10. Microsoft introduced it with initial Windows 10 builds and many users have found it quite useful. The software giant has also improved Cortana experience to users, in successive Windows 10 builds. So if you’re using Cortana for a long time and now wants to reset it to default for any anonymous reason, this article is for you.

How To Reset Cortana In Windows 10

Resetting Cortana comprises of following steps:

  • Prevent Cortana to provide you suggestions, alerts etc.
  • Clear your Cortana data online
  • Clear your browsing and search history online
  • Rename Cortana app folder
  • Re-register Cortana using Windows PowerShell

After following above mentioned phases, you’ll be able to reset Cortana to factory or initial configuration.

So without wasting the time anymore, here is the how-to part:

How To Reset Cortana In Windows 10

1. Click Cortana icon on taskbar and click Notebook icon (2nd from top). Then click Settings.

How To Reset Cortana In Windows 10

2. In the Settings pane, set Cortana can give you suggestions, ideas, reminders, alerts and more option to Off. If you’ve enable Hey Cortana option, set it to Off as well.

How To Reset Cortana In Windows 10

3. Then click this link to go to your Cortana settings under Microsoft account privacy dashboard. On this page, scroll down and click Clear Cortana data.

How To Reset Cortana In Windows 10

FYI: At this point, you must clear your browsing and search history data because Cortana might be using or will use that data in future. You can clear these data on your Microsoft account privacy dashboard.

4. Moving on, rename Cortana‘s folder (Microsoft.Windows.Cortana_cw5n1h2txyewy to Microsoft.Windows.Cortana_cw5n1h2txyewy.old) in SystemApps folder. Follow steps 1 to 5 of this guide for this.

How To Completely Disable Cortana In Windows 10

5. Now its time to re-register Cortana. So open administrative Windows PowerShell and paste following cmdlet, hit Enter key then:

Add-AppxPackage -Path "C:\Windows\SystemApps\Microsoft.Windows.Cortana_cw5n1h2txyewy\Appxmanifest.xml" -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register

Make sure you replace C: with your system root drive, in the above cmdlet.

How To Reset Cortana In Windows 10

Thus, in this way you’ve finally reset Cortana to default configuration.

That’s it!

Also check:

1. How to reinstall or re-register Cortana in Windows 10

2. Reset network in Windows 10

3. Reset/re-register Windows Spotlight in Windows 10

1 Comment

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  • David French

    I tried your remedy here to fix cortana but mine is functioning so poorly that when I clicked on start menu, Cortana, it would not allow me to select the notebook option or any other option and Cortana closed completely. Got any other suggestions? I should add that I have tried virtually every single remedy for ‘not being able to type anything into the start menu search bar’ that exists online.
    Here is some other info related to this problem:
    I am still not able to type a search item into my start menu search bar. On the fix “Restart the Search UI Process” (below) when I went onto the processes tab there was no ‘Search’ option shown at all, it did not exist. I don’t know if that is a clue as to what’s wrong but I proceeded to the next remedy of rebuilding the windows 10 search index with no results there either; and the next as well – nothing.
    “Restart the Search UI Process
    Another thing you can try doing is ending the Search UI process in Task Manager, then restarting your computer. Press Windows key + X, click Task Manager, Processes tab, select Search then click End task. Restart your computer then check to see if search works again.”
    Also, in task manager, details, there are several applications here designated as ‘suspended’, could this be a clue? They are:
    RemindersServer.exe (two of two suspended)
    SearchUI.exe
    ShellExperienceHost.exe
    SkypeHost.exe

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