How to trigger Cortana Programmatically? - windows-phone

Question

Is there a way to use VoiceCommand methods used to programaticlly trigger Cortana as if the Cortana has registered "Hey Cortana" to begin listening?

Answer 1

I had this same question, but for Windows 10. Found a solution: on Windows 10, you can trigger Cortana with Win + C key stroke combination. To get this working programmatically, you would need interop with the Win32 SendInput method. Fortunately there is a NuGet package Windows Input Simulator, that does just this:
Install-Package InputSimulator
With that installed I was able to trigger Cortana from a WPF app using:
var sim = new InputSimulator();
sim.Keyboard.ModifiedKeyStroke(VirtualKeyCode.LWIN, VirtualKeyCode.VK_C);

Answer 2

It is not possible the closest you can get is using something like this:
async static void LaunchCortana(bool untrusted, string searchText)
{
// The URI to launch
string uriToLaunch = #"http://www.bing.com/";
searchText = "search?q=" + searchText.Replace(" ", "+");
var uri = new Uri(uriToLaunch + searchText);
// Set the option to show a warning
var options = new Windows.System.LauncherOptions();
options.TreatAsUntrusted = untrusted;
// Launch the URI with a warning prompt
var success = await Windows.System.Launcher.LaunchUriAsync(uri, options);
if (success)
{
// URI launched
}
else
{
// URI launch failed
}
}
or
await Launcher.LaunchUriAsync(new Uri("bing://home"));
It works in Windows Phone 8.x only and utilizes the fact that Cortana disables Bing.com , but you can't use it to launch Cortana commands. It will just starts a Web search.