In the last article, we talked about some fundamental differences between Windows 7 and Windows 10. Today I’m going to talk about my favorite feature in Windows 10.

By far my favorite feature and what I find is the most useful aspect of Windows 10 is Cortana when you first install Windows 10 a little assistant starts talking to you, it introduces itself as Cortana this is Windows 10’s inbuilt artificial intelligence (AI). AI is what everybody’s talking about at the moment you probably would have heard the names, Siri and Alexa, a lot, fundamentally they the same type of AI as Cortana.

Now that we’ve established that Cortana is a type of AI similar to Alexa and Siri how does that make Cortana my favorite feature in Windows 10, is it because it’s a lovely female voice? Or is there more to it? Well to start with I don’t talk to Cortana I use her typing function, instead of saying the words “Cortana can you find me this file” I simply type in the box the name of the file I’m looking for. Quicker than lightning Cortana finds the file and shows it to me ready to open if Cortana cannot find me the file she tries her best to find something similar.

Let me give you an example in 2015 I created a spreadsheet called accounts. Pretend I am having a tax audit and I need all my account spreadsheets but I cannot find the one from 2015. So, I click on Cortana and I type “accounts 2015”. Lo and behold Cortana finds the files I’m looking for. Honestly, I use this feature in Windows 10 daily. Not only do I use it to open and find files I also use it to open programs. Every morning when I turn on my computer first thing I do is click on Cortana and type “ou” Cortana remembers that when I type “ou” I am probably going to finish by typing the whole word outlook so she puts it at the top of the list because this is one woman knows what I really want.

Not only can Cortana find files you may have lost on your computer but she can also answer questions. I must admit I don’t use this function very often. But it’s nice to know it’s there. All of a sudden, I realized I’d been talking about artificial intelligence and some pretend lady called Cortana. If we think back 30 years and somebody wrote an article like this it wouldn’t be a factual article it would be complete fantasy. I’ve got to admit that is part of the reason Cortana is my favorite feature.