so first hit from google on disabling telemetry.
and it offers clear and easy directions and there are 2 power shell lines you can just copy/paste to disable the services.
and if you feel uncomfortable doing that then ask a tech savvy friend you trust.
head>desk
And if they only have the local boxes which I have shown how to turn that stuff off already.
You need some sort of networked solution otherwise your data is a mess across several machines.
My guess is small places subscribe to cloud services of some sort or are networked in to shared services with other offices.
Adding registry keys and tracking down services with not-too-obvious names (wth is “dmwappushsvc” supposed to mean?) is “easy”? For the average user, I mean?
How about putting these options into the GUI, and actually honoring the options that people set?
I’m not sure why people are supposed to give Microsoft a pass when they’ve done their best to hide this stuff from the user. Unless you already know about the issue and know the terms to go searching for the solution, this is damned difficult to do anything about! And the fact that there are options in the GUI that seem to address the issue but either don’t or do not completely do so, just makes it worse.
I did say YOU COULD ASK A TECH SAVVY FRIEND YOU CAN TRUST.
But those are straight forward instructions on how to do it. The comments even give 2 power shell commands you can just cut/paste rather than search for the odd names.
And as for the non obvious names that goes for every OS out there and “dmwappushsvc” isn’t that ugly you should see some of the actual process names for application software on servers and that is totally out of microsoft’s hands.
Should it be easier? YES YES IT SHOULD. But everyone goes you can’t turn it off when you obviously can with a little effort.
ETA some basic poking on Ubuntu, looks easy to turn off but actually stopping/disabling the service looks to be a command line pain just like microsoft. ETAmore, look like disabling it breaks things as well.
You really don’t need to yell at me. I happen to be tech-savvy enough that I’m able to track down Microsoft’s official documentation on the matter, for goodness sake.
But no, I do not agree that it is in any way “easy”, and turning to unofficial methods to “turn it off” has no guarantee of resolving all of the issues.
As for Ubuntu, the EFF HAS addressed the issues with it before, and Ubuntu has taken steps to correct the problem including turning off data sending by default in newer versions. So until Microsoft has a similar reaction, I really don’t think there’s any reason to defend them.
Good, and I really wish Cory would track and post about that as much as he does the windows 10 ones.
And I agree Microsoft need be way better about these things and I am happy the EFF is holding a fire to their feet over it. It more the sturm and drang about ‘microsoft is gathering your infoz’ when there is nary a peep about Apple/Google/Ubuntu doing the same things.
Heck if Microsoft could show the telemetry data was properly scrubbed and anonymized I would be happy to send it to them just because that is the sort of data they need to make the OS and applications better.
The Windows 10 issue appears to be quite a lot larger, due to the number of different types of information that are being collected by default, the opt-out user settings that do not entirely opt the user out, and the larger user base of Windows.
Despite that, Cory did include mention of the Ubuntu issue back when it came out in at least one post (he was quoting someone else’s text at the time, but it would have been easy to leave that out). BB doesn’t exactly post a huge amount about Ubuntu in general, so of course they’re not going to have nearly as much discussion. If you haven’t seen articles critical of various Google practices then you haven’t been paying attention.
In any case, this article is about Microsoft, and things that Microsoft should fix, so Apple, Google, and Ubuntu aren’t really on topic.
I mean more about the privacy issues… Google does get mentions about it though but just not quite the crazy that Windows does.
Though the real crazy is when he goes on about DRM+HTML5.
There was a big post about privacy issues in Pokemon Go (run by the Google-owned Niantic) just last month, and another about Google wiping someone’s blog in the same month.
The most recent post specifically about Microsoft and privacy I found on a quick search was actually talking about something good that Microsoft did. Before that, all the way back in February there was the issue of Bill Gates saying that Apple should capitulate to the FBI.
I’d humbly suggest that Microsoft isn’t actually being picked on here, and that privacy issues for all of them generally get talked about when there’s news to talk about.
Hmm. Maybe this explains why my system is still stuck on the RTM version. It never installed the November update and doesn’t seem inclined to install the anniversary update. I assumed it was something broken that resulted from the in-place upgrade from Win7 I did but maybe it’s the result of me shutting down all the data collection bits I read about.
You can install it manually as well: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/12387/windows-10-update-history
I think I tried that route without success. My plan is to reinstall to a fresh drive. The in-place upgrade was always meant to be temporary
Also, regarding the whole logging in with your MS account vs a local account…
When I installed Windows 10 I made certain to use my local account. It work fine but a week or so later I decided to check out the app store which asked me to log in using a MS account. This seemed reasonable since it was an online service. Well imagine my surprise when I tried to unlock my pc the next morning and it was looking for my MS account… They had quietly switched my computer’s login (without me even logging out). To make matters worse my MS password was locked away in Keepass. Luckily I also had KP on my phone so I was able to recover and return my login to my local account but that certainly started me off on the wrong foot with Win10.
For most people, “tech-savvy friend” means the guy who gets a new phone every six months, not an IT professional.
You really think Cory is crazy when he talks about privacy issues? You don’t think DRM being forced into all browsers is a regrettable mistake? I think I will stick to Cory’s side of the story for now but I’d be interested in hearing your standpoints.
Except it isn’t as has been repeatedly stated by the w3c and a regular here who works on Firefox.
They are making a API that all DRM has to work through. Not even part of the browser itself. It isn’t awesome but nobody is forcing the browsers or HTML to incorporate DRM.
I happen to be a “tech savvy friend you can trust” and I’d rather spend my time doing other things 
Besides that I know a lot of people have tech savvy friends you can’t trust with stuff like this, most people hardly care about any tracking behaviors when it concerns themselves, let alone the hopeless smuck whose PC they are configuring.
Nobody is forcing anybody, thats correct. Some choices however are taken off the table.
The w3 feels for whatever reason that they need to include DRM in their standards.
Firefox feels like they have to follow w3 of risk losing market share/relevance.
End users will have to decide between open, inspectable browser that does not render unknown percentages of the future web or a standards-compliant browser that has a small black box attached that could even land you in jail if you look at it too closely.
I agree with your assessment of “not awesome”.
Nobody is giving Microsoft a pass here. It’s important to note that this is my no means a Microsoft-only problem. Look at the billions of Android and iPhones and amount of stuff they collect. Stuff that you cannot turn off at all.
Well the other choice is flash, silverlight, whatever plugin they come up with but do bugger all to test or update hell that we currently have. While not perfect the API controlled by the w3c that everyone has to use if they want to deliver encrypted content to the browser is worlds better.
