Last Updated on February 25, 2024 by Mathew Diekhake

Cortana is a virtual assistant created by Microsoft for the Windows operating system and its associated services such as the Invoke smart speaker, Microsoft Band, Surface Headphones, Xbox gaming console, iOS, Android, Windows Mixed Reality, and Amazon Alexa.

Cortana can understand your natural voice and what you’re saying so you don’t need to type words with the keyboard to get her to understand what you want her to do for you. You can use Cortana to set reminders, answer questions, and give other information, some of which is personalized. The version of Cortana and device you’re using will slightly change what it is Cortana can do. Always keep Windows up to date for the best virtual assistant experience as possible.

If you ever need to troubleshoot Cortana, one of the things you may want to try is reinstalling and re-registering the virtual assistant to see if that helps solve the problem.

The following tutorial demonstrates how to reinstall and then re-register the Cortana virtual assistant when you’re using a version of the Windows 10 operating system.

Method One: How to Troubleshoot Cortana by Reinstalling and Re-registering Her for Current User

Here is how you can reinstall and reinstall the Cortana virtual assistant for the one user account that you’re signed into now:

1. Open the Windows PowerShell window.

2. Type the following command and then press the Enter key on your keyboards to execute it. (click to enlarge screenshot below)

Get-AppxPackage Microsoft.Windows.Cortana | Foreach {Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register "$($_.InstallLocation)\AppXManifest.xml"}

You can now close the Windows PowerShell window and continue using your computer if you like.

Method Two: How to Troubleshoot Cortana by Reinstalling and Re-registering Her for All Users

Here is how you can reinstall and reinstall the Cortana virtual assistant for every user account that is set up on your computer:

Note: You need to be logged into the computer with an administrator’s account to be able to use this method. There are two ways you can log in with an administrator’s account on a Windows 10 computer: either by a) using your Windows account that already has the administrator privileges or b) logging in to someone else’s account that has the administrator privileges. The account that was created first is automatically assigned the administrator privileges and it can pass it on to other accounts; other administrator accounts can also remove the administrator privileges from the original account.

1. Open the elevated Windows PowerShell window.

2. Type the following command and then press the Enter key on your keyboards to execute it. (click to enlarge screenshot below)

Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers Microsoft.Windows.Cortana | Foreach {Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register "$($_.InstallLocation)\AppXManifest.xml"}

You can now close the Windows PowerShell window and continue using your computer.

That’s all.

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