Microsoft has discontinued a popular feature on Windows 11

• Microsoft has officially discontinued its standalone Cortana app for Windows 11
• It comes 9 years after the launch of the smart assistant on Windows Phone

It was first launched in 2014 as a digital assistant on Windows Phone.

But if you’re a fan of Microsoft’s smart assistant, Cortana, we have some bad news for you.

Microsoft has announced that it has officially discontinued its standalone Cortana app for Windows 11.

The tech giant explained the change in a blog post this week, stressing that it “understands that it may affect the way you work.”

Here’s what you need to know about the change and what it means for you.

Cortana first launched on Windows Phone in 2014, before being added as an intelligent assistant in Windows 10 a year later.

It was integrated into the Windows 10 toolbar, where users could use the smart assistant to set reminders, open apps, and more.

With the launch of Windows 11 two years ago, Microsoft removed Cortana from the taskbar and instead presented it as a standalone app.

However, the standalone app has now been discontinued entirely.

“We are making changes to Windows and Microsoft 365 that will impact Cortana users,” Microsoft explained.

‘Cortana on Windows as a standalone application is deprecated. Support for Cortana in Teams mobile, Microsoft Teams View, and Microsoft Teams Rooms will end in fall 2023. Cortana in Outlook mobile will continue to be available.

In its blog post, Microsoft highlighted several other tools that users might find useful in the context of removing Cortana.

This includes Voice Access, the new AI-powered Bing, Microsoft 365 Copilot, and Windows Copilot.

“We’re excited to continue innovating and using AI to help you work smarter and faster,” he added.

“We hope you enjoy new ways to use AI to save time and focus on what matters most to you.”

Several users took to X (formerly Twitter) to discuss the news this week.

“If they hooked it up to OpenAI it might work, but instead they killed another product as usual,” one user wrote.

I can not believe it. The two people who used it will be devastated,” another joked.

And one added: “Rip she joined clippy and ai tay.”

The news comes shortly after Microsoft ditched a classic PC keyboard feature that dates back around two decades.

Print Screen is a button on PC keyboards that takes a screenshot and automatically copies it so users can paste it into another application, such as Paint.

Now, an upcoming update for Windows 11, called KB5025310, will change this so that the Print Screen button opens Microsoft’s Snipping Tool instead.