Cortana is one of the most popular features in Windows 11/10. And no doubt it is one of the best Artificial Intelligence based personal assistants. You can easily access Cortana in Windows 10 from the Start Menu or the taskbar. The ‘Ask Me Anything’ or the taskbar search feature has been reportedly causing issues for some users. The primary issue being the inability to type in the search box. This issue can be caused by various factors, and in this post, we’ve discussed a few options that may help you fix the issue.
Cortana Ask Me Anything not working
1] Restart Cortana and Windows Explorer
If you’ve just noticed this issue, the first step you might want to try is restarting Cortana on your computer. Open the Task Manager using ‘Ctrl + Shift + Esc’ and find ‘Cortana’ under ‘Background Processes’. End the task and now look for ‘Windows Explorer’, right-click on it and select ‘Restart’.
Now try using the search box in the taskbar. If the issue has been resolved, the chances are that it was a temporary one and might not return. But if the issue persists, you might want to follow the steps further down below in the post.
2] Repair system files using SFC
In this step, we will try to fix any corrupt system files using System File Checker. This fix applies to many other issues as well, so there are chances that you are familiar with this step.
Open an elevated ‘CMD’ window and enter the following command:
sfc /scannow
This command will initiate a system scan, and it will take a little while to complete the scan. Once the scan is complete, you might get one of three following results:
- Windows Resource Protection did not find any integrity violations.
- Windows Resource Protection found corrupt files and successfully repaired them.
- Windows Resource Protection found corrupt files but was unable to fix some of them.
The first result means that the issue is not being caused by any corrupt system files. The second result might fix the issue, and if you get the third result, you might want to read the log files.
If this method didn’t work out for you, there is only one last option left that you can try.
3] Re-register Cortana
Open an elevated Powershell prompt, type the following command and hit Enter:
Get-AppXPackage -AllUsers | Foreach {Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register "$($_.InstallLocation)\AppXManifest.xml"}
You can also open Task Manager > File menu > Run new task. Type powershell and select the Create this task with administrative privileges check box and click OK to open a PowerShell prompt
4] Create a new Account
Go to ‘Settings’ and open ‘Accounts’. Create a new user account with the same privileges your current account has. The account can be a ‘Local’ or ‘Microsoft Account’, or you can create both to see where the issue actually is.
Now log into your newly created account and check if the ‘Cortana’ is working.
The solution to this problem is to delete your existing account and create a new one. Back up all your user data and create a new account with administrator privileges, and delete the old account from your computer. Later on, you can use the same Microsoft Account to connect it with your new account.
To efficiently back up your data, you can use the built-in Windows backup functionality or take the help of any other third-party backup software.
I am sure something here will help you. But if you are still stuck on this issue, you should reset your Windows computer and start afresh. Remember that, resetting your computer will delete all the user data and installed applications. So, make sure you’ve backed up everything.
Read next: Start Menu, Cortana & Taskbar Search not working.
