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I typically disable Cortana on my desktop and Surface Pro 3 (by transferring permissions to my admin login and renaming the folder). When I see either a big Windows update is needed, or there are a lot of failed updates, I usually run sfc /scannow, and if that doesn't work, I download the windows update troubleshooter.

I ran it (sfc) today on my desktop and Cortana is back and offensive. But the desktop updated without issues. (It actually didn't have many failed updates, but the Surface was having issues so I was trying to see if the desktop could provide answers.)

I ran sfc /scannow on the Surface, but it wouldn't update anything. I then downloaded the MS update troubleshooter on both the desktop and Surface, though the desktop updated fine. Desktop says there are no update issues, and all updates go through. Surface says there are update issues, reboot and fix them... and nothing is updated apparently: it's an infinite loop.

Background: I had to rollback a major update for the Surface -- and sadly I don't remember what it was -- but it screwed up my on-screen keyboard (this was about a month ago). Additionally, desktop is running 1709, whilst Surface is 1703 (perhaps due to the on-screen keyboard issue?)

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  • Is there any specific reason you're screwing around with system files rather than using the privacy settings to limit/disable Cortana? Either way you should add more details, what Windows reports etc. We don't know what exactly you broke, but doing a System Refresh might fix it.
    – Mario
    Mar 25, 2018 at 7:11
  • I disable Cortana because I dislike SearchUI.exe constantly running. I dislike pretty much anything that has the potential to log/collect data. And I dislike why I can't just remove Cortana if I don't want to use it. I'm a minimalist and prefer not to have all the advertisement companies knowing what I search for. That being said, I've done the same on both the desktop and Surface to disable Cortana, so I fail to see why that is the issue, unless it's related to the version (1709 vs 1703). Edit: How do I show what windows reports? And a refresh will always fix. But I lose everything.
    – Asinine
    Mar 25, 2018 at 7:15
  • Download the latest release manually by going to microsoft.com/eb-gb/software-download/windows10. You should be able to run the tool to update your current system.
    – Mokubai
    Mar 25, 2018 at 7:34
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    Hey @Mokubai, that appears to be a bad link.
    – n8te
    Mar 25, 2018 at 7:37
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    Annoyingly it is the link I got straight from the Win10 ISO download page. How about microsoft.com/en-gb/software-download/windows10
    – Mokubai
    Mar 25, 2018 at 7:42

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