How to Enable Windows 10’s ‘Hey Cortana’ Voice Commands?

Microsoft Windows 10’s best feature is its integration with its digital assistant ‘Cortana’. For those who are not familiar with Cortana’, it is a voice activated personal assistant for your PC. Cortana will help you use your PC in a number of ways. With the help from Cortana, you can send an email, set a reminder for your meetings, and find a file on your PC or search the internet.one of the best feature on Window 10 is that you can summon this assistant by using just your voice. You need not use your keyboard at all. You just have to say ‘Hey Cortana ‘and it will appear to help you. Just one small issue with this feature is that it will not be activated automatically on your PC, you will have to enable it. Windows 10’s voice assistant Cortana does not wake up until you click on her search box. However it is a very simple and easy settings change, which will enable it to be on always listening mode.

To activate the voice commands on your PC, you have to follow these few simple steps. First you will have to click on the Cortana icon or search box on the task bar. In Cortana’s left hand navigation panel, right under the Home icon, you will find the ‘Notebook’ icon. Once the notebook screen is open, click on Settings. In the Settings panel, you will have to turn the slider to ‘On’ under the ‘Hey Cortana’ heading. After you have done that, there will be a new option for you called as” Respond Best”.

The option “Respond Best” gives you a choice whether you want Cortana to respond to anyone who uses the PC or only to your voice command. If you choose ‘Anyone’ then it means the Cortana voice command is activated and you are ready to go. But if you choose the second option by clicking ‘To me’, then Cortana will have to ‘Learn your Voice’ to recognize it in future. Then Cortana will give you six different sentences. You will have to repeat those six sentences so that Cortana gets your voice pattern saved in her memory. Once this is done, Cortana’s voice activation is complete and she is ready to respond to your voice command.

You have to remember one thing that to use this feature on your PC, you will require an active microphone. It is not necessary that the microphone has to be integrated in your laptop. You can use any external microphone unit. Depending on the microphone unit you have chosen, Windows 10 may tell you that the microphone is not working and therefore Cortana cannot hear your commands clearly. You will have to see for yourself which microphone works for your PC.  When you need Cortana to do a task for you, just start with ‘Hey Cortana’ and immediately follow with your command. For example, you need to say” Hey Cortana, find me file named Personal.” There is no need for you to wait for Cortana to load and listen to your command.  This is the easiest way to enable Windows 10’s “Hey Cortana” voice command.