How do I get just a Microphone icon on my taskbar for Cortana instead of a search field + microphone?

Question

Finding the search field useless, but the microphone input for Cortana great. Was hoping to just have the microphone icon alone.

Edit: I'm looking for a way to just get the Cortana microphone icon, rather than the circle.

Answer 1

Right click on taskbar, you should have something called Cortana or Search and the submenu will give you options to Hide, Show icon or Show search bar.

Answer 2

I found a way to do this.

Create a VBScript file and name it "Speech" or whatever.

Enter code in it to press the Windows key and the "C" key at the same time (the code for the Windows key is ^{Esc}).

Save the file, and download a suitable icon of a microphone. Set the icon of the VBScript file as the microphone icon and pin it to the Taskbar.

Right-click on the taskbar, and in the Cortana submenu, select "Hidden".

Voila!