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FIGURE 2-8 You can use this Group Policy setting to keep the Cortana service off managed PCs.
If you don’t enable Cortana, the box to the right of Start performs simple searches of the local file
system, settings, and the web, minus any personality and also without any connection to your personal
data.
Although Cortana has been part of Windows Phone for nearly a year, she appeared for the first time
in the Windows 10 Preview in late January 2015. Because much of Cortana’s magical powers derive from
web-based services, she’s getting smarter with age. What you see in current releases is only a fraction
of what you’ll see after another year (or two or three) of continuous improvements.
The best way to understand Cortana is to type something into the box just to the right of the Start
button, or click the microphone icon and say it instead.
After you and your users get past the novelty of it all, take a look at Cortana’s notebook (available
from the icon just below Home in the navigation bar on Cortana’s left edge). That’s where you can finetune
the information—news, upcoming appointments, weather, reminders, and so on—that pops up
instantly when you click in the Ask Me Anything box. (That summary is replaced with search results as
soon as you start typing.)
The list of Notebook categories shown in Figure 2-9 isn’t complete, and within each category the
options can expand as Cortana becomes more capable. Scrolling down reveals more categories, including
Weather, Sports, and Reservations, where you can allow Cortana to scan your email in search of
restaurant reservations, movie times, and other likely events.
26 CHAPTER 2 The Windows 10 user experience