Cortana is missing afrter latest update

[tonyluo2001]

Hey guys. I wonder if this is a problem for my Thinkpad X Yoga 3 or a Windows problem. After a recent update on my W10P (1809), Cortana is no longer working. Clicking the Cortana app, clicking in the search box, or yelling "hey Cortana", none of them works. There's no microphone icon in the search box. Right clicking the taskbar doesn't show me the Cortana option either.

I searched the web, tried opening a new account, typed some command line to reinstall it, they didn't work either. Does anybody have the same issue? Any suggestions? Thanks!

 

[spicypadthai]

Is your system set to one of the regions below?

 

[tonyluo2001]

My system is set as United States: English. And Cortana worked until recent update.

 

[spicypadthai]

Ok, then here's what I would do:

1) Try a different PC login if you have one or create a new one and make sure it has Admin permissions. I've seen profile issues cause all sorts of problems over the years so it's a good idea to verify whether the same behavior occurs for a different user profile.
2) If it occurs using a different profile, then check whether you have a Restore point prior to the update, when Cortana was still working. If you do, then restore to it.
3) If you don't have a restore point, try updating to 19H1 via the Insider Release Preview ring. Granted, Cortana is getting less useful with every build and it sounds like she's a mess in 19H1, but it's worth trying.
4) If you don't want to go to 19H1, then a reset is probably the best option but that will take a while and doing a "clean" reset, which I would, requires backing up all your local files (docs, music, photos, etc.) and then setting everything up from scratch and re-installing all your apps.

 

[tonyluo2001]

Thanks. Creating a new profile is not working. I even tried the command line to reinstall Cortana. Though the code looked like it worked, but it didn't. Does restoring require backing up files? If yes, I rather doing a clean reinstall of the whole system.

BTW, I previously reset the secure-boot function in BIOS, but I am not sure if that's the date I missed Cortana. Anyways, now it's by the busiest time of the year for me, so I would try other ways 2 months later.

 

[spicypadthai]

Does restoring require backing up files? If yes, I rather doing a clean reinstall of the whole system.

No, your files (docs, pics, etc.) will still be there. Apps that were installed/updated after the restore point will need to be re-installed/re-updated, and even some apps that were there prior may need to be, too. I've seen some AVs not "like" restores.