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There is no Cortana in the taskbar or anywhere to activate it... When I go to the settings it says it is not available in my region or language, even though I am in the UK with English language.
How do I get the Cortana feature to work in Windows-10?

Prasanna
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MasudM
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  • Are you sure your system locale is correct? – bwDraco Aug 01 '15 at 18:45
  • Cortana does recognize UK region. This issue came and went with different Insider builds. I never saw any news of a fix. For me, it's not an issue with the RTM build (10240), but from what you say, it's still lurking there waiting for a fix. Hopefully there will be a Windows Update that sorts it out for you before too long. I haven't heard of any way to fix it but I'm interested to see what it turns out to be. – Reg Edit Aug 01 '15 at 21:39
  • @DragonLord Yes, if I go to my time and language settings and then click region and language it shows my country as United Kingdom and I have two languages: English (United States - set as default) and English (United Kingdom). This is because my laptop keyboard is in US format but I switch to UK when I use word (words are spelled differently). – MasudM Aug 02 '15 at 08:09

4 Answers4

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Go to language center and change Cortana language so it wont be disabled because your device default language isn't supported by Cortana. To do so:

  1. Click Win button+S
  2. Search settings and go in to the settings center
  3. In the settings center search: search history and go to change search history settings. You can see it here: The settings center and what to search
  4. On the left (or right depends on your default language) click on: Language and change the search language as you can see in this picture: Windows Search Language Center

Hope it helps, it worked for me.

Ron Cohen
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Related Superuser post

Microsoft states that Cortana is available in the UK. Even if region, language and input are set to UK users are unable to get Cortana.

Also you can see whiteghost's reply in tomshardware.com which might solve your problem

You can however change your locale to US and get Cortana.

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First, Go to Control Panel > Clock,Language & Region > Language > Add language and add United States English as shown below

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Second, Go to PC Settings > Time & Language > Region & Language and set English(US) Set as default

enter image description here

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And also change the Region to United States

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Enjoy Cortana !!

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Community
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Manubhargav
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  • Cortana should work in the UK with English(UK or USA). As per the [Microsoft website](http://windows.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows-10/cortana-is-not-available-in-your-region-or-language), "Cortana is available in the following countries/regions: China, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, United Kingdom, and United States. Cortana is available in these languages: Chinese (Simplified), English (U.K.), English (U.S.), French, Italian, German, and Spanish". – MasudM Aug 02 '15 at 08:04
  • It seems that many people in UK have the same problem. It is a Microsoft bug. I merely gave you an alternative to get Cortana.. – Manubhargav Aug 02 '15 at 11:00
  • ok, thanks for helping! Hopefully this bug gets sorted soon... – MasudM Aug 02 '15 at 17:56
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Wow, after various attempts at enabling Cortana I found the answer by accident. When you first see Cortana it shows you some features and shows two options: Settings and Not Interested. When you click settings it will take you to another page with more options but then you cannot enable Cortana as it is "not available in my region". Today, by accident I clicked Not Interested, this took me to a page to actually setup Cortana. Some Microsoft Intern must have forgot to change the Button's text.

Edit: ...a few minutes later I realised I would probably never use Cortana so all this was pointless, but oh well now I can ask how the weather will be in some obscure country at 2am WITHOUT typing!

MasudM
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Cortana is only available in the USA at the moment. If you want to force it set your system region to the USA.

headkase
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  • Found here: Settings -> Time and Language -> Region and Language – headkase Aug 01 '15 at 18:46
  • Oh, and you have to set your language and speech language to "English (United States)" too. Voted to -1 but it actually is the solution. – headkase Aug 01 '15 at 19:16
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    As per the [Microsoft website](http://windows.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows-10/cortana-is-not-available-in-your-region-or-language), "Cortana is available in the following countries/regions: China, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, United Kingdom, and United States. Cortana is available in these languages: Chinese (Simplified), English (U.K.), English (U.S.), French, Italian, German, and Spanish". – MasudM Aug 02 '15 at 08:03
  • Ah, I see. I live in Canada - one of the countries without Cortana - and when I upgraded from 8.1 Cortana actually worked for me. I checked my region and I had had it all set to the United States, that's why it worked for me. As I'm not actually that interested in Cortana I set my region to, properly, Canada and then Cortana stopped working. So, even if it isn't perfect it is an answer. – headkase Aug 02 '15 at 14:43
  • ok, thanks for trying! It is probably just a bug with Windows 10 in other regions! – MasudM Aug 02 '15 at 17:54
  • Right on, you're welcome. :) – headkase Aug 02 '15 at 17:58