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A long time ago, I ran some scripts from the web to increase the privacy of my Windows 10 installation. Among other things it disabled Cortana. Except for multiple error messages in the event viewer saying that DCOM could not start Cortana (a good thing in my opinion) everything else seems to work correctly.

That was with build 1903.

Since then, every attempt to upgrade to build 1909 resulted in the search box being disabled in explorer windows, and none of the solutions I could find was able to fix it, and I ended up reverting to 1903.

Is there a way to update to a more recent version without killing the search functionality in explorer?

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  • You will need to tell us what script you ran exactly.
    – Ramhound
    Commented Nov 22, 2020 at 18:58
  • What versions have you tried to upgrade to exactly? Instead of submitting a comment edit your question
    – Ramhound
    Commented Nov 22, 2020 at 19:06
  • Cortana is disabled on my computer, but Search is enabled in Explorer and it works. Apparently your script is the cause. Can you undo it? Which script was it?
    – harrymc
    Commented Nov 22, 2020 at 19:16
  • If I could remember what script or application made the change, I could just revert it without the need to ask this question. Anyway, got it working.
    – Alex O
    Commented Nov 22, 2020 at 22:02

2 Answers 2

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Search is integrated with Cortana (although the Cortana interface does not have to be used). So you need to enable the Cortana and the functionality you disabled and the update.

If everything has worked properly, the Search window in Explorer should return. It is here for me and works just fine. Windows 10 20H2

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    Cortana was separated from Windows Search with the release of 2004 I believe it was.
    – Ramhound
    Commented Nov 22, 2020 at 18:58
  • I think that is correct, but it is best to keep Cortana as things may change. There is no harm in have Corana, but unused.
    – anon
    Commented Nov 22, 2020 at 19:00
  • I would agree it’s still problematic to remove Cortana since I believe it still interfaces with Windows Search. It’s far easier to just to disable the web search than to completely obliterate Cortana.
    – Ramhound
    Commented Nov 22, 2020 at 19:01
  • Cortana is disabled on my computer, but Search is enabled in Explorer and it works.
    – harrymc
    Commented Nov 22, 2020 at 19:16
  • BTW, an easy way to disable most aspects of Cortana without disabling Windows Search is with a third-party tool, such as O&O ShutUp10, oo-software.com/en/shutup10 (which works in v. 1909). This, and most other such tools, have check-buttons to allow convenient display and back-out from changes. Sorry, not an answer, but may help next time.
    – DrMoishe Pippik
    Commented Nov 22, 2020 at 20:11
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I chanced an upgrade to 20H2 and it seems to work. Of course it comes with a slew of other issues, like Edge hijacking preferences...

Thank you all!

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  • Thanks for the update.
    – anon
    Commented Nov 22, 2020 at 22:03

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