It’s a constantly moving target. Yeah, you might block everything today, but then a windows update comes along and, poof, a bunch of the data harvesting is back on. I hope you were checking the detailed patch notes every time an update installs!
Ah yes, that’s a concern - but I have a job in Task Scheduler that re-writes my registry tweaks - mostly changing various tasks back to “disabled”. You can trigger it hourly, or on an event. As soon as a selected event - such as a telemetry switch-on - hits the event log, the “disable” script runs.
There’s other ways, like taking ownership of the executables and changing permissions to lock out the “SYSTEM” account.
And pihole blocks DNS resolution of the telemetry harvesters as well. Windows update won’t touch that.
It’s not 100% effective, but I couldn’t be bothered to take it further.
It’s not difficult to block the mining and telemetry. Pihole, a few registry tweaks, a few scheduled tasks disabled and life goes on.
Folk see nothing wrong with spending hours tuning a Linux distro, but they object to doing the same with Windows?
FWIW I use vanilla Debian for everything other than what I’m required to use Windows for.
It’s a constantly moving target. Yeah, you might block everything today, but then a windows update comes along and, poof, a bunch of the data harvesting is back on. I hope you were checking the detailed patch notes every time an update installs!
Ah yes, that’s a concern - but I have a job in Task Scheduler that re-writes my registry tweaks - mostly changing various tasks back to “disabled”. You can trigger it hourly, or on an event. As soon as a selected event - such as a telemetry switch-on - hits the event log, the “disable” script runs.
There’s other ways, like taking ownership of the executables and changing permissions to lock out the “SYSTEM” account.
And pihole blocks DNS resolution of the telemetry harvesters as well. Windows update won’t touch that. It’s not 100% effective, but I couldn’t be bothered to take it further.