Unfortunately we can’t stop all the telemetry although we can prevent it from reaching it’s destination

Blocking certain IP’s via any firewall has benefits!
Tip: Backup your existing firewall settings prior to making any changes.

There are 3rd party programs out there that can assist in this area such as WPD
I’ve used this in the past to good effect in windows 7/8.1 and 10, however, I did encounter a site that I use which was blocked by default and freed myself such as outlook 13.107.42.11

Once I was happy with the firewall ruleset, I exported it for safe keeping as a backup for each OS.

There are other settings within WPD that will require investigation on your part that also help neutralize unsavoury issues. But for now, look at your firewall rules is my advice.

(Disclaimer: I have no affiliation with WPD etc..)

Ok I see you have achieved the ruleset import cool!
For the benefit of others and yourself in future:
Once you have downloaded WPD,
run it (whilst online) and click the following selections with the red arrow:

This will download the firewall ruleset for windows firewall.
Once done, check the windows firewall to see if the following ruleset has been applied by going to:
Control Panel/ Windows Firewall/ Advanced Settings/ Outbound rules

My screenshot shows WPD MS Telemetry IP Block V31, yours shows V35 as I have edited mine and not updated for a while.
I had been following crazymax for a while on github who has his own equivalent IP SpyBlocker but preferred WPD for it’s simplicity and crazymax IP block findings. Best of both IMO

Double clicking on the Firewall Ruleset for WPD MS Telemetry IP Block V35 and going to scope tab (as shown)

By clicking on ‘these IP addresses’ one can edit/add or remove IP’s you need to access. When you need to access a site that won’t load, this is where to come to search for the corresponding IP to delete it. This doesn’t take that long comparing to your bookmarks/ favorites IP addresses.

Once this is all done and your happy, export the firewall settings somewhere safe.

Note: Not only does this work for Win 8.1 but also for Win7 and 10

I went a different route (prefer doing as much as possible manually or without additional software), so used abbodi86’s guide (here) to disable telemetry tasks and services for my Windows 7 and 8.1 systems. It has worked well so far as all tasks and services stay disabled even after installing monthly rollups.

For the Windows firewall, I went a little further and set it to block ALL outbound traffic then added a few outbound rules for only items that need it (ex. Firefox, Outlook, Windows Update, TCP port 445 to map a network drive on a local NAS, etc.).

“@anon would that really do it ? or might some stuff sneak by 445 etc? I truly don’t know – just wondering.”

No, TCP port 445 doesn’t have anything to do with telemetry. It’s part of the Server Message Block (SMB) protocol used to access network file shares (ex. on a local network server).

Microfix wrote:

Unfortunately we can’t stop all the telemetry although we can prevent it from reaching it’s destination

Blocking certain IP’s via any firewall has benefits!
Tip: Backup your existing firewall settings prior to making any changes.

There are 3rd party programs out there that can assist in this area such as WPD
I’ve used this in the past to good effect in windows 7/8.1 and 10, however, I did encounter a site that I use which was blocked by default and freed myself such as outlook 13.107.42.11

Once I was happy with the firewall ruleset, I exported it for safe keeping as a backup for each OS.

There are other settings within WPD that will require investigation on your part that also help neutralize unsavoury issues. But for now, look at your firewall rules is my advice.

(Disclaimer: I have no affiliation with WPD etc..)

Hi,

You might want to take a look at the freebie app from SpyBot, ‘Spybot Anti-Beacon’.
This lists out all Microsoft telemetry gubbins secreted on your PC and enables you to select them all individually and disable them. In the event of updates / patches adding back the telemetry features on restart SpyBot AntiBeacon pushes them off. If need be you can switch individual telemetry enties back on.

SpyBot Anti-Beacon found 143 entries on my laptop all of which are now ‘immunised’.

Comment from SPYBOT …….

Why do you need anti-telemetry?
We at Safer-Networking Ltd (SpyBot) respect Microsoft’s wish to get feedback from users to improve their operating system, but we firmly believe it is the user’s right to choose how much of their data they wish to share.
While Microsoft have included the ability to disable certain telemetry options in Windows 10, it can be quite difficult to disable all of these manually. For this reason, we have created a tool that will do this with the click of a button, and can be updated to include telemetry additions added by Microsoft in the future.
Why should I choose Spybot Anti-Beacon?
It’s sincere – Spybot Anti-Beacon is transparent and open in what is does, listing details of the changes it makes to your system for those interested.
It’s affordable – Actually, it’s free! And it’s created by a passionate, privacy-concerned team. There are a lot of anti-telemetry instructions, scripts and tools on the Internet, but we’re careful to include only the real things.
We are comprehensive – Spybot Anti-Beacon lists optional features to block on a separate page. Our team uses cutting-edge technology and have extensive experience working with malware and spyware.
It’s flexible – if you’re the family tech guy, you can simply pick up the Portable Edition and carry it on your thumb drive.
It’s user friendly – press one button and you’re done!
A simple but clever solution.

? says:

does “spybot.” still modify the Hosts file?

https://www.howtogeek.com/howto/27350/beginner-geek-how-to-edit-your-hosts-file/

? says:

thank you, Microfix! i do my best to keep the base os stock and when i installed Spybot on XP last decade was supprised to see what was in the Hosts file as i used to visit it occasionally to check for outside modification(s). good to know WPD leaves the Hosts file as is…

You can activate the ‘spy section’ and it will add more firewall rulesets, if however, you run into problems accessing some sites, you need to get the IP of that site and remove it from the WPD Spy IP Block V35 ruleset added to your firewall. This is done within the Scope section.

It takes time and effort to do so but, IMO it’s worth it on an individual end-user basis.