Windows 7/8.1 Telemetry Updates are back

[Gwalk900]

Windows Update is again putting out an update that will cause a Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 computer to share your computers information with Microsoft as well as being another source of missing data:

Heads up: Telemetry updates for Win 7 and 8/8.1 are back againTelemetry updates republished 2/8, (aka Data collection) are back in Windows Update and the Catalog:
KB2952664 (Win 7)
KB2976978 (Win 8/8.1)

This behavior can be stopped using this method:

Here you go--this is for Win7/Pro but I suspect you'd also find the entries in Win8/8.1:

Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Task Scheduler > Microsoft > Windows > Customer Experience Improvement Program and then I set all 3 entries in Task Scheduler to "disabled".

Also take a look a the 2 entries in "Application Experience" (also in the > Task Scheduler > Microsoft > Windows section

The above was shared from a dslr post that can be read in its entirety here:

https://www.dslreports.com/forum/r31246976-Heads-up-Telemetry-updates-for-Win-7-and-8-8-1-are-back-a...

[GW]

Thank you.

[BirdDog]

Thanks. It is an optional update for 8.1, I always check the "More Information" link. I've hidden the update, will not install it.

[Gwalk900]

Just clarify, there are two areas in Task Scheduler that we should all check and set to disabled:

Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Task Scheduler > Microsoft > Windows > Customer Experience Improvement Program

(Click on picture for larger image)

Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Task Scheduler > Microsoft > Windows > Application Experience

(Click on picture for larger image)

[GW]

Gwalk, how about you design us a task that will check and nuke this garbage M$ dumps on us all the time?

[BirdDog]

How about we all start moving to Linux (Mint)? It is getting better and better with each release. That is my goal. Only a couple driver and GUI things I need to get worked out then bye, bye Windows.

It is quite different getting updates and setting up but not bad. Plug and Play people might struggle but it sure is a nice OS/GUI

https://www.linuxmint.com/

http://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=3181

[maratsade]

Linux Mint is fantastic.

[Amanda]

Seconding this! I installed Mint on 2 of our lab computers here because they could not handle Win 7 or 10. It was very easy to install and you just reminded me I have to go back in there and download some .iso's to make one of them our VM 

[GW]

The last time I tried a linux was Mint version 17. I use a distro for a while every few years and have done so for a very long time. It's fun but I always find it pointless since I never can get rid of windoze.

[GabeU]

Had to use Mint on Saturday to scan some documents as my scanner hasn't had a usable Windows driver since  Vista.  Worked perfectly with Mint 18.1, which is on the same desktop that has W10 (the one I'm on now).  

Have 17.1 on my original home build (from 2005).  It works perfectly on that, too, though I had to use the 32 bit version as the MB is limited to 1GB of memory.