Windows 10: Microsoft confirms splitting of Search and Cortana in Windows 10

Today, Microsoft confirmed that Windows 10 19H1 update is separating Cortana and the Windows Search in the taskbar. This change makes sense, as it kind of gives freedom to users to perform searches in the operating system without interacting with the digital assistant, Cortana.

While Cortana is useful in many cases, not everyone likes it, so Microsoft is splitting the two in the upcoming Windows 10 feature update. It’s a good change for folks that want to use search, but not Cortana (or vice versa).

In Windows 10 October 2018 Update or older, Cortana and Search are deeply integrated, more or less you’ve to use the digital assistant for simple things like searching for a document. Similarly, the search integration into Cortana conceals some of the digital assistant features.



In a blog post, Microsoft emphasises that uncoupling Search and Cortana will allow the company to bring new features and improvements to each independently.

“For those new to this update, when it rolls out to you, you’ll find clicking the search box in the taskbar now launches our experience focused on giving you the best in house search experience and clicking the Cortana icon will launch you straight into our voice-first digital assistant experience,” the company explains.



Microsoft is still testing the separated Windows Search and Cortana experience. Windows 10’s Spring 2019 update isn’t finalized yet and more changes are very likely to make it to the desktop. Search and Cortana could get further improvements or enhancements in a future build.

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Windows 10 Tweaks

As you may already know, Windows 10 (as well as Windows 8) allow you to log in with a valid Microsoft account, instead of creating a local account that only works on your machine. However, you may prefer to keep a local account for privacy reasons. If you do, though, some Windows 10 features—like Cortana—may not work. Despite the default behavior, the Windows 10 Store is not one of them. You can still log in to your Microsoft account for just the Store without switching to a full Microsoft account. The process, however, is not terribly obvious. To do so, follow these steps:

• Launch the Store from your Start menu.
• Click the user icon next to the search box.
• Click “Sign-in” from the menu that appears.
• Choose “Microsoft account” and log in like normal.
• When the “Make it yours” box appears do not enter your password. Instead, click “Sign in to just this app instead.”

from Lifehacker

 

Windows 10 Tweaks

Privacy tweaks...

• Turn Cortana Off. Bring up the Start menu and start typing. Click on the notebook icon in the left sidebar and choose Settings. From there, you can turn off Cortana.
• Search online and include web results. When you turn off Cortana, you’ll see this option appear. You can turn it off if you’d rather not get web search suggestions from the Start menu, which log your typing and send it back to Microsoft so you can get live-updating predictions, just like you do on Google.com or in Chrome and Firefox.
• Getting to Know You. In Settings > Privacy > Speech, Inking, & Typing, you’ll find a feature called “Getting to Know You”. This is probably the most sweeping privacy setting on the system, and even after turning off Cortana, you’ll have to disable this setting. Just click the “Stop Getting to Know Me” button to turn it off.
• Cloud Info. Turning off Getting to Know You removes info from your device, but you’ll have to remove it from the cloud separately. In that same window, click “Go to Bing and manage personal info for all your devices” to clear the Getting to Know You Data from your Microsoft account.

• If you head to Settings > Privacy > Feedback & Diagnostics, you’ll see two settings:

• Feedback frequency: Windows will occasionally ask you for feedback so you can send Microsoft your thoughts on Windows 10. If you’d rather it not bug you with such things, you can change it to Never.
• Diagnostic and usage data: This feature can send a lot of data back to Microsoft, including how often you use certain apps, which apps you use most often, and memory snapshots (which can inadvertently include parts of a document you’re working on if something crashes). You can change this to Full, Enhanced, or Basic. You can read more about what each of these to here.

Microsoft doesn’t let you turn off diagnostics completely, except on Enterprise versions of Windows. The Basic setting, they say, is data that is “vital to the operation of Windows”, including Windows Update and malicious software protection.


some may be duplicated. I found this info on Lifehacker, if anyone wants the full article.

 

Cortana search filter list


I have a lot of space for display content in Cortana search list, and 80% of it not used because Cortana sorting items by types.
How disable all filters and make visible all suggested content?