The tips, ads, and recommendations you see will be more generic and may be less relevant to you.

And this is treated as a bad thing?!

The number of ads you see won’t change, but they may be less relevant to you.

Send only info about your device, its settings and capabilities, and whether it is performing properly.

In other words, even after turning off all the settings, your data still gets collected.

The rest of the installation process wasn’t fun either. It was worded in this weird, condescending tone, like “Let’s get everything set up for you”, and “Let Cortana help you get things done!”.

Thank goodness for FLOSS and GNU/Linux.

  • rekabis@lemmy.ca
    0·
    10 months ago

    You can use Win10Privacy to bodily castrate nearly all built-in spyware and telemetry.

    Downside is that it’s a damn powerful program, with few guardrails, so if you don’t have good knowledge of Windows internals you run a non-trivial risk of accidentally lobotomizing an important feature of your install by enabling the wrong setting. I mean, all settings can be easily reversed, but you gotta know which specific one did the nerfing in order to undo the oopsie.

    For example, even the midrange firewall settings are mostly safe, except… a single one of them completely kills Microsoft Office Click-To-Run. It won’t install, and it won’t launch even if you installed it before you applied Win10Privacy. So if Microsoft Office is an essential (Access or Excel absolutely needed, for example), be careful.

  • baritone_edge@lemmy.ml
    0·
    10 months ago

    People have always said turning those off reduces what’s collected, but I’m a devoutly pessimistic skeptic. Is there a way to verify what telemetry is collected? I’m not fluent but I’d think something like two VMs with different telemetry setting and wireshark. Has anyone tried?

    • Dave@lemmy.nz
      0·
      10 months ago

      In the past I’ve heard of power shell scripts you can run to actually disable or uninstall stuff. I wouldn’t trust these toggles to do much at all.

    • Azzy@beehaw.org
      0·
      10 months ago

      I don’t think so, but this sounds like a super interesting idea. I might try this later!

        • Azzy@beehaw.org
          0·
          10 months ago

          I’ve been super busy as of recent, but I’ll try to remember to reply to you if/when I do :)

  • Dizzy Devil Ducky@lemm.eeEnglish
    0·
    10 months ago

    This is why if I ever have to get win10 on a VM on my laptop, I am absolutely not updating, ever. Not even gonna give that VM Internet access. Anything I’d need it for, I can passthrough a thumb drive with the files I need. I would hope to God they don’t have a way to hoover up data without internet connection and with no macrohard account connected.

  • Neon_Shadow@lemmy.world
    0·
    10 months ago

    Yeah, Windows sucks. I recommend the LTSC version for minimized tracking. But even then, I had to use third-party software and hacks to minimize it further. I don’t ever plan to go back after switching to Linux.

      • umami_wasabi@lemmy.ml
        0·
        10 months ago

        LTSC is the enyerprise/business version that have extended period for patches with less bloat. It’s similar to LTS with Ubuntu.

      • Peter West@mastodon.social
        0·
        10 months ago

        @BananaOnionJuice @Neon_Shadow Tiny11 is a project where windows 11 has been stripped down to the absolute barebones, there may still be some telemetry that needs to be disabled (O&O shutup is good for that). It’s designed to work on older machines with as little as 4gb ram, so it would be perfect for running in a VM, in fact that’s what I’m planning to do.

      • fl42v@lemmy.ml
        0·
        10 months ago

        Let’s narrow it down to normal ppl :) 'Cause those having nothing to hide are enabling enshitification.

      • eveninghere@beehaw.org
        0·
        10 months ago

        Yeah, those granpas asking me to fix their machines are like, “and, what do we do with my OneDrive which I don’t understand what it is?”

  • BearOfaTime@lemm.ee
    0·
    10 months ago

    Yea, it’s really shitty.

    Enterprise folks don’t have this problem because they use the WAIK (or whatever it’s called now) to customize the installer.

    Anyone can use it, and from what I’ve read, the Win10 generation of the kit is much easier to use than previous versions (which were pretty bad).

    But yea, this stuff is awful.

    Checkout things like WinDebloat, Privatezilla, Winaero Tweaker, and LoveWindowsAgain. There’s some overlap between them (as they were built for different purposes), but they all pretty much kill telemetry at the service or installed level (as in remove the components providing telemetry).

    Yea, it’s BS you have to do this. And screw MS for this crap.

    • Neato@ttrpg.networkEnglish
      0·
      10 months ago

      I think the pro version doesn’t have most of this too. I’ve never seen an ad in w10 and 11

      • viking@infosec.pub
        0·
        10 months ago

        They don’t show explicit banner ads or anything, but every now and then there will be links to “recommended software” in your start menu’s app drawer or the notification thing in the bottom right (not the taskbar, that foldable drawer thing).

        You can disable those as well, but not by default.

    • jelloeater - Ops Mgr@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      10 months ago

      LTSB or LTSR I forget which. Toss some classic shell in there, boom, Win 10 like you remember Win 7 was like. Too bad they fucked up 11 so bad I switched to Ubuntu.

      • NostraDavid@programming.dev
        0·
        10 months ago

        It’s LTSC (Long Term Service Channel) nowadays - It’s the LTS version of Windows 10. Fewer updates, more stability of your OS in general. It’s neat!

        No Windows Store by default, but it’s possible to install that separate, should you really need it.

    • stratosfear@lemmy.sdf.org
      0·
      10 months ago

      With win10 you should be able to click the small text to get a local account but yeah I think with newer win11 installers you have to be off the internet for a local account. And then when you do log in with your MS account to save your license (important when using a Win7 OEM key to license win10) it would convert your profile to online, and then you had to “do steps” to put it back to local. Annoying af

      • Davel23@kbin.social
        0·
        10 months ago

        When installing Windows 11, say you want to log in with your Microsoft account, then when it asks for email address and password enter a@a.com and any random password. It will say the account has been deactivated and let you create a local account. No need to be offline.

    • Darken@reddthat.com
      0·
      10 months ago

      Even if offline…

      But It can be bypassed with dodging and weaving (shift+(some button) the bypass command thingie…)

      Safe to say that normal people won’t be casually bypassing it

  • LalSalaamComrade@lemmy.mlEnglish
    0·
    10 months ago

    Shows gun “Can I please borrow your money?”

    “H…how much?”

    “Not a lot, just 5 billion”

    Same vibe.

    • MagneticFusion@lemm.ee
      0·
      10 months ago

      If he is using Windows in a VM, he probably already runs Linux as his base OS and is using the VM for a windows only app

    • umami_wasabi@lemmy.ml
      0·
      10 months ago

      Maybe also not Ubuntu or RHEL? I heard they also collect telemetries and hard to trun off. Unsure.

      • umbrella@lemmy.ml
        0·
        10 months ago

        i actually uninstalled the telemetry package and it stopped even being able to enable telemetry

      • ichbinjasokreativ@lemmy.world
        0·
        10 months ago

        Ubuntu will ask you if usage data can be collected and sent to canonical when you first log in after installation. You get to look at the exact data that would be sent before making a decision and if you say no, then they’ll comply with that and never ask you again.

  • TheAnonymouseJoker@lemmy.ml
    0·
    10 months ago

    Or you could have tried Windows 10 AME. It has none of this stuff.

    OSes are tools. You should not care. Use the one best for a particular job.

    • NostraDavid@programming.dev
      0·
      10 months ago

      That reminded me of TinyXP - a modified version of Windows XP to be like some 100MB install, instead of the typical 2GB of default bloat.

      Good shit.

      • TheAnonymouseJoker@lemmy.ml
        0·
        10 months ago

        nLite, eXPerience, WinPE days were old. AME is not built like that. It is debloated and stripped of components that results in same thing as the custom ISO builds of yesteryear though.

      • TheAnonymouseJoker@lemmy.ml
        0·
        10 months ago

        Lol

        Explain to me how this is a valid reason or argument. This looks to me like circlejerking, a primitive internet behaviour.

        This is not reddit or 4chan.