10 TECH ADVISOR • JUNE 2020WINDOWS 10
that can be undocked, moved around your desktop,
and resized at will. Microsoft has also returned Cortana’s
ability to receive requests via text as well as voice.
This change has pluses and minuses. When Cortana
was integrated with the taskbar, the assistant had a
tendency to disappear when you returned focus to
another window. This made sense in certain cases, but
when you asked a question, you had to copy down the
answer before doing anything else. Currently, Cortana
seems to disappear as a window if it’s on your primary
screen and you begin interacting with another window.
On a secondary monitor, though, the window remains.
Cortana now allows you to specify whether you’d
like to talk to Cortana or simply type responses in its
in-app Settings menu. That’s somewhat handy, although
at that point Cortana becomes less of an assistant and
just another search box. Microsoft also says its changed
the ‘wake word’ to just ‘Cortana’. The distinction is
largely academic: On my build, Cortana didn’t respond
to a wake word at all, even after double-checking that
the mic was properly set up. Clicking the mic button (or
the Win+C shortcut) did trigger Cortana, however, and
the speech recognition was usually good.
Cortana’s functionality has suffered. There’s no
Windows 10 Settings area that controls the app,
just general speech controls. While Windows can be
governed by a personal account and connect to a
business account, there’s no obvious way to do that
with Cortana – you have to pick one or the other,
which is sort of awkward.
On my test build, Cortana was unable to launch
Amazon’s Alexa in-app, as it’s done previously.10 TECH ADVISOR • JUNE 2020WINDOWS 10
that can be undocked, moved around your desktop,
and resized at will. Microsoft has also returned Cortana’s
ability to receive requests via text as well as voice.
This change has pluses and minuses. When Cortana
was integrated with the taskbar, the assistant had a
tendency to disappear when you returned focus to
another window. This made sense in certain cases, but
when you asked a question, you had to copy down the
answer before doing anything else. Currently, Cortana
seems to disappear as a window if it’s on your primary
screen and you begin interacting with another window.
On a secondary monitor, though, the window remains.
Cortana now allows you to specify whether you’d
liketotalktoCortanaorsimplytyperesponsesin its
in-app Settings menu. That’s somewhat handy, although
at that point Cortana becomes less of an assistant and
just another search box. Microsoft also says its changed
the ‘wake word’ to just ‘Cortana’. The distinction is
largely academic: On my build, Cortana didn’t respond
to a wake word at all, even after double-checking that
the mic was properly set up. Clicking the mic button (or
the Win+C shortcut) did trigger Cortana, however, and
the speech recognition was usually good.
Cortana’s functionality has suffered. There’s no
Windows 10 Settings area that controls the app,
just general speech controls. While Windows can be
governed by a personal account and connect to a
business account, there’s no obvious way to do that
withCortana– youhavetopickoneortheother,
whichis sort of awkward.
On my test build, Cortana was unable to launch
Amazon’s Alexa in-app, as it’s done previously.