How to trigger Cortana Programmatically?

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);