You can remove Cortana from Windows 10, but it's tricky

Travis wanted Cortana, Microsoft's personal assistant for Windows 10, out of his PC once and for all. He's probably not alone, so I figured I'd detail exactly how to perform a Cortana-ectomy. This procedure was done on the latest build of Windows 10, which is 1607 (the Anniversary Update). Once complete you'll have a regular search bar like in previous versions of Windows. Big kudos to this forum, where I unearthed these tips.