Cannot Sign In To Cortana On Windows 10

If you cannot sign in to Cortana on Windows 10, this article will show you how to fix it.

Kapil Arya
11x Microsoft MVP · Admin
2 min read
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Cortana is the personal productivity assistant available to you in Windows 10. It is incorporated to save your time so that you can focus on things which needs most of your attention. To use Cortana, you need to sign in to it. Note that, you can’t use Cortana if you’re on a local account. Cortana is available in some selective languages and regions of the world, so if you’re not able use Cortana because of that, checkout this article.

Cannot Sign In To Cortana On Windows 10

Sometimes, clients may report that they can’t sign-in to Cortana. Usually in such scenarios, you may receive ‘Something went wrong’ error. If you’re also on a situation where you can’t sign in to Cortana, here is how you can deal with it.

FIX: Cannot Sign In To Cortana On Windows 10

FIX 1 – Sign In To Microsoft/Work/School Account

When you’re on local account and you try directly sign in to Cortana app and you got error, try a different sign in method. You should go to Settings app and try to switch to Microsoft account from your local account. Once you’re signed in to Microsoft account on system, you should be automatically signed in to Cortana.

In case if you’ve Azure AD or your corporate/work account, try connecting your Windows 10 to Azure AD first and then sign in to Cortana.

FIX 2 – Using Registry

Those clients who already tried switching to Microsoft account but this didn’t worked, should try these steps:

Registry Disclaimer: The further steps will involve registry manipulation. Making mistakes while manipulating registry could affect your system adversely. So be careful while editing registry entries and create a System Restore point first.

1. Open Registry Editor by running regedit command.

2. Go to HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Software\Microsoft\IdentityCRL\StoredIdentities.

3. Under StoredIdentities registry key, you’ll a sub-key for the Microsoft account email ID you’re try to sign-in. Right click on it and select Delete.

4. Close Registry Editor and reboot.

5. Now retry FIX 1 and you should be able to switch to Microsoft account and hence, should be sign in to Cortana as well.

Hope this helps!

Read next: Cortana not working in Windows 10.

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Kapil Arya
11x Microsoft MVP · Admin

Kapil holds Microsoft MVP title in Windows IT Pro expertise, 11-times in a row (2014-2025). He is 8-times Windows Insider MVP as well, and author of 'Windows Group Policy Troubleshooting' book. In 2015, Microsoft India accomplished him as 'Windows 10 Champion'. Being passionate Windows blogger, he loves to help others on fixing their system issues. Kapil has worked with official Microsoft Community Engagement Team (CET) on several community projects. You can subscribe him for news/updates and fixes for Windows.

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