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Cortana is really bad

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Re: Cortana is really bad

#51

Post by hellcow »

dpkonofa wrote: post #47
GolDDranks wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to be fair: I installed a copy of IntelliJ IDEA on my macOS. It was the trial version. I use Spotlight (and a year back, Alfred) to launch my all applications. However, Spotlight couldn't find the app for it's life, even if it found all the other apps in the same directory. After I upgraded to the paid app, the problem suddenly fixed itself. But I keep having shivers. It shouldn't be Spotlight's business.

This sounds like a series of coincidences more than anything. Spotlight has to index your drive at intervals so, if you recently added an app, it's possible that the app hadn't been indexed yet by Spotlight. Then, by the time you had done the upgrade to paid, Spotlight had indexed the file and and then it started working. There's nothing nefarious going on there. It just sounds like a coincidence.

I can speak to this too. Latest version of MacOS. I installed Spotify weeks ago, and Spotlight just never indexed it (it's in the /Applications folder). I use Spotlight to launch every app... except Spotify, which it can't find.

Re: Cortana is really bad

#52

Post by louky »

CydeWeys wrote: post #38

Every single interaction I've ever had with Cortana has been complete garbage. It's worse than the old-school "simple string match on installed applications and files on disk" in every way, yet has somehow supplanted it?! I wish there were some easy way to completely uninstall this frustrating garbage in Windows 10 and go back to the simple interface that just worked. I cannot even begin to count how many times I've…

I just keep a window open running "everything search". Insanely fast and actually works!. Cortana is worse than useless for my use cases.

The inability to find installed programs by name is laughably unacceptable. How they continue to push this stuff out is amazing, their management must be really awful.

Re: Cortana is really bad

#53

Post by kop316 »

CydeWeys wrote: post #38

Every single interaction I've ever had with Cortana has been complete garbage. It's worse than the old-school "simple string match on installed applications and files on disk" in every way, yet has somehow supplanted it?! I wish there were some easy way to completely uninstall this frustrating garbage in Windows 10 and go back to the simple interface that just worked. I cannot even begin to count how many times I've…

I have similar issues with Edge on Windows. When it auto completes a webpage, it will do a bing search instead and have that as it's top result.

Personally, I think it's done on purpose, as every time it searches, it counts as a search in Bing, and that way they can use that to show how many people use Bing to charge more for advertisers.

Re: Cortana is really bad

#54

Post by fencepost »

neves wrote: post #24

How can I disable Cortana? I've tried and failed. I don't know why it is necessary an auxiliar app just to index my executables just to be able to type a few letters and start them quickly.

You might want to look at O&O ShutUp10 (https://www.oo-software.com/en/ShutUp10), which lets you disable a bunch of Windows 10 features along with tips on what they are and their importance and risks.

Re: Cortana is really bad

#55

Post by j-kearl »

GolDDranks wrote: post #41
CydeWeys wrote: post #38

Every single interaction I've ever had with Cortana has been complete garbage. It's worse than the old-school "simple string match on installed applications and files on disk" in every way, yet has somehow supplanted it?! I wish there were some easy way to completely uninstall this frustrating garbage in Windows 10 and go back to the simple interface that just worked. I cannot even begin to count how many times I've…

Just to be fair: I installed a copy of IntelliJ IDEA on my macOS. It was the trial version. I use Spotlight (and a year back, Alfred) to launch my all applications. However, Spotlight couldn't find the app for it's life, even if it found all the other apps in the same directory. After I upgraded to the paid app, the problem suddenly fixed itself. But I keep having shivers. It shouldn't be Spotlight's business.

I've had the same problem with Spark and even Xcode, so very unlikely it's Apple willfully refusing to index. What fixes it for me is reindexing via going into Spotlight preferences and adding /Applications to the list of folders not to index, then removing it.

Re: Cortana is really bad

#56

Post by j-kearl »

hellcow wrote: post #51
dpkonofa wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds like a series of coincidences more than anything. Spotlight has to index your drive at intervals so, if you recently added an app, it's possible that the app hadn't been indexed yet by Spotlight. Then, by the time you had done the upgrade to paid, Spotlight had indexed the file and and then it started working. There's nothing nefarious going on there. It just sounds like a coincidence.

I can speak to this too. Latest version of MacOS. I installed Spotify weeks ago, and Spotlight just never indexed it (it's in the /Applications folder). I use Spotlight to launch every app... except Spotify, which it can't find.

What fixes it for me is reindexing via going into Spotlight preferences and adding /Applications to the list of folders not to index, then removing it.

Re: Cortana is really bad

#57

Post by CydeWeys »

louky wrote: post #52
CydeWeys wrote: post #38

Every single interaction I've ever had with Cortana has been complete garbage. It's worse than the old-school "simple string match on installed applications and files on disk" in every way, yet has somehow supplanted it?! I wish there were some easy way to completely uninstall this frustrating garbage in Windows 10 and go back to the simple interface that just worked. I cannot even begin to count how many times I've…

I just keep a window open running "everything search". Insanely fast and actually works!. Cortana is worse than useless for my use cases. The inability to find installed programs by name is laughably unacceptable. How they continue to push this stuff out is amazing, their management must be really awful.

What is "everything search"? Is that third party or does it ship with Windows? That sounds like something I need.

Re: Cortana is really bad

#58

Post by monochromatic »

eterm wrote: post #12

The whole experience of the start search / cortana / mix is horrible. It can't even fuzzy search. Type "view event" and it brings up "view event logs", if you type "view events" it instead searches bing, in edge, for "view events". Edge isn't even my default browser. Bing isn't my default search engine, and I didn't want to browse the web. Any slight deviation from an exact phrase and it goes straight from "here's th…

As I type successive characters searching for “update” it switches back and forth between windows update and java update.

Just awful.

Re: Cortana is really bad

#59

Post by ModernMech »

eterm wrote: post #12

The whole experience of the start search / cortana / mix is horrible. It can't even fuzzy search. Type "view event" and it brings up "view event logs", if you type "view events" it instead searches bing, in edge, for "view events". Edge isn't even my default browser. Bing isn't my default search engine, and I didn't want to browse the web. Any slight deviation from an exact phrase and it goes straight from "here's th…

Agreed. I like to play dota 2, and sometimes I access it via search. Cortana will find it if I search "Dota" or "Dota 2" but not "Dota2", which matches steam instead of a direct link to the game. How is that possible in 2017?
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