15 Things You Can Do With Cortana on Windows 10

Cortana is one of Windows 10’s most visible new features. Microsoft’s virtual assistant makes the leap from Windows Phone to the desktop, and there’s a lot you can do with it. It isn’t just a voice assistant either — you can also type commands and questions

Open Cortana to see information it thinks you might care about. Cortana provides a lot of passive information, too, even notifying you when you need to leave to make an appointment on time.

If you can’t use Cortana yet in your country, there’s a way to enable Cortana anywhere in the world.

Set Reminders for Times, Places, and People

Cortana has a powerful built-in reminder feature, but there’s more you can do with these reminders than simply getting a reminder at a specific time.

Use the Reminders icon or say “Remind me” to get started. You can create a reminder and have Cortana remind you about something at a specific time, when you get to a specific location, or when you talk to a specific person. You can also just say something like “Remind me to take my pill at 8pm” or “Remind me to buy milk when I get to [name of a store]” to instantly create a reminder.

Use Natural Language Search

Cortana supports natural language search for files on your computer. For example, you can ask Cortana to “find pictures from August” or

The Windows 10 FAQ: Everything You Need to Know

Now that Windows 10 is available for public download and installation people have more questions than ever about the new version of Windows. We’ve rounded up the questions we get most frequently here at How-To Geek and compiled them to help you get up to speed about Windows 10.

For all our curious readers, neighbors, and people searching for more information about Windows 10 we’ve rounded up to most frequently asked questions we’ve come across here for your convenience.

Is Windows 10 Really Free?

There has been significant confusion regarding the pricing (or lack there of) of Windows 10 over the last year. Don’t be ashamed if you’re confused, Microsoft themselves changed their story regarding the upgrade and pricing schedule more than a few times during the development and beta testing of Windows 10.

For a huge number of people Windows 10 is really, truly, free-as-in-beer free. If you are currently running any legitimate (non-pirated) version of Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 you will be upgraded for free to an equivalent version of Windows 10. Windows 7 Home/Basic/Premium users and Windows 8.1 users will be upgraded for free to Windows 10 Home. Windows 7 Professional/Ultimate users and Windows 8.1 Pro users will be upgraded to Windows 10 Pro.

You’ll note we didn’t say Windows 8; if you have a Windows 8 machine you first need to