The settings cover whether you want to see cards for local, headline, and popular news-but it’s most important to manually add news topics and categories you want to track, to tell Cortana to surface information about those interests specifically. News lets you tweak the news articles Cortana surfaces when you open her interface. I already have Spotify for that, so I personally disable this entire category. Music allows Cortana to toss up cards with music recommendations for popular music from the top of the Billboard charts. From there, you’ll see a slew of submenus. Open Cortana, click the “hamburger” menu icon (three stacked horizontal lines) in the lefthand column, and select Notebook. After that, you can fine-tune Cortana’s knowledge of you-or slap blinders over Microsoft’s eyes-via Cortana’s Notebook.Ĭortana’s settings “Notebook” in Windows 10. The basic setup shouldn’t even take a minute. Answer each as you see fit, though be warned: Cortana’s at her best when you give Microsoft more of your information, much in the same way Google Now is most useful when you’re tapping into Google’s full range of services. The first time you click the search area in the Windows 10 taskbar, Cortana will pop up and ask for a few basic permissions-voice and digital inking recognition, access to your location data, et cetera-as well as the name you’d like her to call you.

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(Jump to page 2 if you’re just interested in seeing what Cortana can do once the assistant’s set up properly.)Ĭortana asking for permission to access your location.

To get the most out of Cortana, you need to tell her about your interests. Don’t miss: PCWorld’s comprehensive Windows 10 review Training Cortana

Windows 10 setup cortana