A way to mediate the telemetry gathering in Win7 and 8.1

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Windows guru Günter Born has just posted an English-language article on his web site about KB 2952664 and KB 2976978, the re-issued snooping patches f
[See the full post at: A way to mediate the telemetry gathering in Win7 and 8.1]

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Pepsiboy

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What is the difference between updates posted on Patch Tuesday and patches posted on any other day?
KB2952264 and its counterpart for Windows 8.1 were always “special”.
There is no point in taking unsupported steps when the patch can simply be ignored.
My current view is that KB2952664 should be installed while the Scheduled Task implemented should be left alone, but my criteria may be different than the criteria of other people, so everyone has a choice.

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woody

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I don’t know if this is clear to everyone, so I come up with an update.
When I say install KB2952664 if it suits you, I do not make reference to the Optional patch, just released.
If anyone decides to install, do not install this patch before it is upgraded by Microsoft to Recommended or Important.

Note:
Never install Optional patches, unless they have a clear purpose and have passed the test of time, like KB2574819/KB2592687/KB2830477 aka RDP8/8.1 for Windows 7, or the Platform Update KB2670838 which is pre-requisite for IE10/IE11.
Those mentioned above are good Optional patches.

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walker, woody

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My gentler (compared to Günter Born’s) mitigation advice regarding the “bad” Windows 7 updates from the past few years is at https://www.askwoody.com/forums/topic/care-to-join-a-win7-snooping-test/#post-21435 and https://www.askwoody.com/forums/topic/care-to-join-a-win7-snooping-test/#post-21451.

“Here is the full list of what I found for Windows 7 x64 that violates the operating system’s Customer Experience Improvement Program setting:” – see https://www.askwoody.com/forums/topic/care-to-join-a-win7-snooping-test/#post-21467.

I intend to write a Woody Knowledge Base article regarding the recent “bad” Windows 7 updates when time permits.

Note: I haven’t yet tested the version of KB2952664 that was released on February 9, 2017. I will when time permits.

MrBrian

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Elly, walker, Microfix, lizzytish, ch100, woody

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Finally, we will access, transfer, disclose, and preserve personal data, including your content (such as the content of your emails in Outlook.com, or files in private folders on OneDrive), when we have a good faith belief that doing so is necessary to:

comply with applicable law or respond to valid legal process, including from law enforcement or other government agencies; …

(Quoted from https://privacy.microsoft.com/en-us/privacystatement/ )

KB2952664 and other Telemetry updates for Win 7/8.1 are likely for M$ to fulfil the above policy, ie to hv the capability to provide all PII of specific Win 7/8.1 users when court-ordered by the NSA, eg PII of Muslim terrorists and financiers.

For the 29 July 2015-released Win 10, this capability is likely already baked-in, but not for the 2009 Win 7 and 2012 Win 8/8.1.
So, around Sep 2015, M$ began issuing Win 10-style Telemetry updates(= NSA spyware) for Win 7/8.1, eg hidden in new versions of KB2952664.

I hv been hiding these Telemetry updates from my Win 7 cptr since then. In April 2016, Windows Update became broken on my cptr = had to manually install the monthly Patch Tuesday security updates, one-by-one, from M$ Update Catalog or Download Center.
Recently, in Jan 2017, Windows Update on my cptr was auto-magically ‘fixed or unfixed’ by M$ and I could again install security updates normally.

I chose to only install security updates up to Sep 2016, ie just b4 mandatory monthly Patch Rollups for Win 7/8.1 began in Oct 2016 since M$ can no longer be trusted, eg hiding Telemetry updates here or there or everywhere.

Since Aug 2016, my main OS is Linux Mint 17.3 bc why should I be bothered by M$-NSA Windows-spyware, eg having to resort to the above Gunther Born’s workaround-fix which may soon be unfixed by M$.
But some people cannot live without M$-NSA Windows-spyware, esp business-people n gamers.

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Perfect solution use your Outlook.com account for all your Junk Mail and stuff that looks like it can generate Junk and keep your isp or work personal email just for the stuff you hold dear to your self. Reading my Outlook emails they (M$ or whoever) probably conclude I am a hopeless nerd or a rampant “shopaholic” neither of which is true well the nerd bit “kinda-sorta.” May be reading about M$’s antics from a 3rd party may make them reconsider? (something about snow balls longevity of life in h*** springs to mind at this juncture) As for “One drive” nahh! never use it my self there’s lots of snoop free storage out there in exotic parts of the world far from prying eyes and keyboards. For the personal machine snooping well I can offer no solution for that save keep everything you “hold near and dear” off the machine for storage or don’t leave your memory sticks and or DVD’s in the drive(s) (Ohh and floppy’s just in case there’s the odd “heritage machine” out there)

Oii Woody that’s the latest (my time) post I have seen from you in a while…its the weekend! “all computer and no play makes for a dull M$ critic”

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Perfect solution use your Outlook.com account for all your Junk Mail and stuff that looks like it can generate Junk and keep your isp or work personal email just for the stuff you hold dear to your self.

Maybe, Mi$$ Cortana also monitors yr ISP or work/personal emails. Does “she”.?

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Strangely one time last year I set up Outlook (free version) on Win10 to test the email settings, basically to see if it was worth keeping. I entered imap.isp.net (not real) and Outlook entered a value other than smtp.isp.net errm something like smtp.isp2.net (automatically) not the official settings. You sure got to wonder about that because it actually worked.
So far using Office’s Outlook 2016 I haven’t seen any evidence of that as I don’t have Cortana on my machine (Win10Edu. doesent have her)That’s all set to change the next edition (1704/3) alas, if the 15025 Win10Edu. insider build is anything to go by. I don’t use the all invading M$ account only just on a “sign in by App” basis to download from the store. Although I have no doubt there’s probably some snooping going on. Currently trying out a few other email Progs. but nothing comes close to the usefulness of Outlook 2016.

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The sun never sets on AskWoody. ?

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Does anyone know exactly why KB2976978 CEIP telemetry patch is offered as an optional patch for W8.1 twice in WU? The issue dates are 11,1/16 for the older patch and 2/9/17 for the newer patch. File sizes are different also but both are offered under the identical KB number. I think some W7 systems are seeing the same behavior.

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The newer patch will probably supersede the older one when it is released and the older one MAY disappear. This is the 20-somethingth version of that patch, and you don’t see all the previous ones.

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@ch100 talked about this in an earlier thread.

You’re seeing two different versions of the same patch. The older version was distributed as Recommended, the newer version as Optional.

I don’t know what’s going to happen on Tuesday, when this should all come to a head – or fizzle into Monthly Rollup obscurity.

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Disabling/Deleting “Application Experience” task is enough to block KB2952664 effect
any other tasks are not related at all

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ch100, woody

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