With data breaches and malware infections on the rise, it’s more important than ever to take your privacy seriously. Without proper protection, you transmit data about yourself to every website you visit and every application you install – even to Microsoft itself, thanks to Windows 10 telemetry.
As part of its troubleshooting efforts with Windows 10, Microsoft records data about the apps and features you use, your system information, your system settings, and more. If you are concerned about the transmission of this data, you can turn off Windows 10 telemetry by following these steps.
What is Windows 10 Remote?
Windows 10 isn’t the first version of Windows to collect and transfer system data to itself, but Microsoft has certainly increased the amount of data it collects and transfers in this release. Microsoft does this through telemetry, as this practice is called.
Along with your general privacy settings, such as data that Windows collects to serve ads or filter adult content, Microsoft also collects location data, Windows usage information, and other internal diagnostic information to help monitor and troubleshoot Windows in different countries. millions of PCs.
You can see the benefits for Microsoft, but there are some serious privacy issues here to consider for the standard Windows user. Microsoft has made it extremely difficult to disable Windows 10 telemetry settings for Windows 10 Home users, instead giving users the option to limit them to collecting basic data only.
If you’re using Windows 10 Pro, Enterprise, or Education, you can turn off telemetry completely by editing the registry or using the Group Policy Editor, but this setting is disabled for many users.
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The choice is yours: you can leave telemetry enabled and let Microsoft collect a variety of information about you, your location, and your activities. Alternatively, you can set telemetry to a minimum (or turn it off entirely) to disable Microsoft from its data collection activities and return control to you.
How to define telemetry data for Windows 10
As we mentioned, Microsoft has prevented Windows 10 Home users from completely disabling telemetry data. If you want to restrict the sharing of telemetry data, you can do so in the Windows Settings menu.
- To open this menu, right-click the Start menu and select Settings. This will load the Windows 10 settings menu in a new window.
- From the Windows Settings menu, select Privacy> Feedback & Diagnostics to access telemetry settings.
In the Diagnostics and Usage Data section, you can change the different levels of data collection. For now, they include options for collecting basic data that limit the information sent to Microsoft to only include system settings, hardware, and whether your system is working properly.
Alternatively, you can opt for full data collection, which sends all diagnostic data, including data about the websites you visit, the apps and features you use, device status, and additional error data for troubleshooting.
- Select one of the options in this menu to choose between these options. The option you choose will be applied immediately.
In a future version of Windows 10, these settings will be changed to required diagnostic data (to replace baseline data collection) and additional diagnostic data (to replace full data collection). The settings should remain the same, but with the changed settings names.
How to complete disabling remote tracking in Windows 10 Pro, Enterprise, and Education editions using GPEditor
While this is not an option for Windows 10 Home users, you can turn off telemetry sharing for Windows 10 Pro, Enterprise, and Education users.
There are two ways to do this. You can change telemetry settings using the Group Policy Editor or by modifying the Windows Registry using the Windows Registry Editor.
- To do this using the Group Policy Editor, press Windows Key + R to open the Run box. From there enter gpedit.msc and click OK.
- In the Group Policy Editor, use the menu on the left to access Computer Configuration> Administrative Templates> Windows Components> Data Collection and Preview Builds. A list of settings will be visible on the right – double-click the Allow Telemetry option.
- In the “Allow Telemetry Settings” window, you can change the telemetry settings. Be sure to first select the Enabled option in the upper left corner so you can set it up here.
- In the “Options” section, you can change the telemetry data collection settings. Values ??range from 0 (disabled) to 4 (full). Only Enterprise, Pro and Education users can set this value to 0 – if you have these editions, set that. Otherwise, set 0 for disable, 1 for basic, or 3 for complete. Option 2 (advanced) has been canceled, so setting it may cause Windows to select a higher value by default.
- After applying your settings, click OK to save. The new telemetry settings will be applied to your computer.
How to complete disabling remote tracking in Windows 10 Pro, Enterprise, and Education editions, using Registry Editor
If you want to completely disable telemetry in Windows 10 Pro, Enterprise or Education, you can also use the Windows Registry Editor to do so.
Windows 10 Home users can also do this to change their telemetry settings, but you will only be able to restrict data collection, not stop it completely. For Windows 10 Home users, it’s best to use the Windows 10 Settings menu instead.
- First, open Registry Editor by pressing Windows + R and typing regedit in the Run command window that opens. Click “OK” to start.
- In the Windows Registry Editor window, use the left tree menu to access HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE> SOFTWARE> Policies> Microsoft> Windows> DataCollection. In the right pane, right-click and select New> DWORD (32-bit) Value.
- Name the new value “Allow Telemetry”. Once created, double-click the value to change the value.
- In the Change DWord (32-bit) Value field, enter a value in the Value field. They correspond to the values ??used by the Group Policy Editor. You can choose from 0 (disabled, for Windows 10 Pro, Enterprise and Education users), 1 (basic data collection, for all users), 2 (for advanced data collection, but no longer used), or 3 (full data collection). After making your selection, click “OK” to save.
After changing the value, the telemetry setting you selected will become active. At this point, you can close the registry editor.
Protect your data on Windows 10
If you choose to turn off Windows 10 telemetry, you will limit the amount of personalized support Microsoft can offer to fix the issues you encounter while using its operating system. However, disabling telemetry is not risky, so if you prefer to restrict data sharing, you should disable it.
Of course, there are other ways to keep your data safe while using Windows. You should first check if your data has been compromised on the Internet and, if so, change your passwords immediately. If you’re really worried, consider encrypting your hard drive to give you complete control over your data.
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