Some of us don’t want Cortana. Disabling it doesn’t actually disable it, so you have to jump through a hoop.

It’s not that hard to remedy.

• 2016-10-17 – There’s an option for this in Ultimate Windows Tweaker, but it doesn’t seem to work.

Tested and works:

• 2016-10-17

  • An administrator explorer isn’t necessary.

• 2016-02-03

Run an administrator-access explorer ∞

• Make a shortcut to C:\Windows\explorer.exe

  • [Advanced]
  • [x] Run as administrator

• Run the shortcut.

Rename Cortana’s folder ∞

• Go to C:\Windows\SystemApps
• You will see something like Microsoft.Windows.Cortana_foo

• Rename it.

  • You can pick any name, but something like RENAMED - Microsoft.Windows.Cortana_foo will do nicely, since you can easily rename it back if you change your mind.

• It will complain that the folder is in use. That’s expected. Keep that abort/retry dialog there.

Delete the process and confirm the rename. ∞

• control-shift-escape will bring up the task manager.
• Locate the Cortana process.
• Align the explorer window in such a way that you can retry the rename quickly.
• Select the Cortana process, and end it, or press alt-e to do it more quickly.

• Quickly retry the folder rename.

That’s it. You may need to try the task-end folder-rename more than once if you don’t catch Cortana before it starts back up on its own.