How to activate Cortana in #Windows 10?

Microsoft first introduced “Cortana” in Windows Phone 8.1 and now integrating with Windows OS. Going with Windows 10 (build: 9926 onwards), you will see her assisting you in your desktop, tablet versions too. Though it is currently in development stage for Windows 10, not all the functionalities work properly.

In this blog post, we will discuss how to activate Cortana in Windows 10. Also we will see, how to activate touch free “Hey Cortana”. A short video tutorial can be found at the end of the post.

If you are a Windows Insider, you might have already got the new update for Windows 10 Technical Preview build version: 9926. In this release, Microsoft integrated Cortana and a touch free “Hey Cortana” support to preview it before the final release of Windows 10. Though it is currently in development stage, hence not available in all regions/markets and also could be little buggy.

Cortana is a personal digital assistant, which can provide you suggestions, ideas, reminders, alerts and more. To work properly, Microsoft collects and uses your location, contacts, voice input, information from email and text messages, browser history, search history, calendar details and many other information.

To activate Cortana and “Hey Cortana” support on Windows 10, just follow the below mentioned steps:

First click on the Search button or Search Input box, whichever is available for you based on your settings. This is available near the start button, bottom left corner of the screen. Now as shown in the above screenshot, open the settings menu.

Here you can activate Cortana by toggling ON the “Do you want Cortana to work for you?” button. This will open another dialog seeking your name. You can provide Cortana your name. In various scenarios, she will call you by that name.

Proceed to the next screen to hear the pronunciation of your name, the way Cortana speaks. If that sounds good to you, proceed next. Else try with a different but simple way, so that, she can spell your name very clearly.

Once done, you can see Cortana greet you by your name. Click “Done” button to go back to the home screen.

Here in this screen, you can click the small microphone icon to activate Cortana to listen your commands. Or you can activate the touch free “Hey Cortana” instance.

To activate the “Hey Cortana” service, go to the Cortana settings again and toggle ON the “Let Cortana respond when you say Hey Cortana” button. Once done, you don’t have to click the microphone icon to activate her. Just say “Hey Cortana” followed by the command that you want to give her. She will automatically respond to your command.

You can also change your name from this settings pane, if you want. There are couple more settings available there. Don’t forget to activate the “Have Cortana call me by my name” toggle button.

Here is a small video demonstration of the above steps. In case you want to check the whole steps, here it is:

Did you find this post helpful? Drop a line below with your comments and provide me feedback to improve my blog posts. If you have any features suggestion that you want to put me in this blog, drop a line and I will set it here for others to experience the new Windows 10.

Till the time I publish a new blog post on this Windows 10 Technical Preview series, continue reading my other tips on Windows 10 here: win10tips.kunal-chowdhury.com.

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