9
3
I have just set up a new PC with a fresh installation of Windows 10. The PC is connected to my company's network, and must make use of a proxy server to connect to the internet, because of company policy.
I have turned off Cortana in the settings, and also turned off Search online and include web results in the Cortana & Search Settings menu.
However, when I open the start menu and start typing, a dialogue titled Cortana appears asking for proxy login and password. If I cancel this dialogue, I can continue typing my search term, e.g. update, but no search results appear. The results box remains blank, not even the animation with the flying dots appears which indicates a search being executed on a properly working system.
If I search for the term update on my private Windows 10 machine at home, this search yields, among others, Search for Windows Update, Windows Update Settings, and files with the word update in the name, all local results.
As an experiment, I tried circumventing the proxy server, which results in the start menu search working as expected: It yields local results but not web results, as configured. If I turn the proxy server back on, the search continues to work until the PC is restarted, at which point search stops working again.
The same happens when I provide valid login data when prompted: Search begins to function and continues to function even if I uncheck the proxy login dialog's save credentials box.
At this point I could ask the person who will be using the PC later on to provide their proxy login to Windows and have the system save the credentials. However, it irritates me that they should have to do that, since I have explicitly turned off any start menu setting related to accessing the web.
Are there maybe some settings I have missed that will eliminate the need for Windows to access the internet when the start menu is used, or is this unchangeable Windows 10 behavior?
You can completely disable Cortana on enterprise versions through a group policy – Ramhound – 2016-02-15T16:30:09.473
If you are concerned about privacy, remember that most proxies won't filter HTTPS in-depth. And Cortana works on HTTPS like just any other search engine. – usr-local-ΕΨΗΕΛΩΝ – 2016-02-15T20:15:09.043
1@Ramhound Thanks for the tip! I just gave that a try, and while it does lock the Cortana toggle in the off state, Windows will still ask for a proxy login when I open up the start menu. I've also rebooted the PC and manually ended the Cortana task, but the result is the same. – waldrumpus – 2016-02-16T08:59:26.980
Did you disable "Get to know me" in Settings? – PulseJet – 2016-08-22T20:26:05.003
Was anything here of help for you? Same issue – Samuel – 2018-02-14T13:15:13.450
This SU suggestion to create a registry entry
BingSearchEnabled
and set it to false prevents web results from showing up for me. (That was posted to fix broken start menu search.) – User5910 – 2020-02-06T03:29:20.653