Microsoft snooping through Office

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Just saw this post in the comments from JIY: Upon reading ox’s post, I thought to check my installs of Office 2010 Pro Plus, as well as the Win 7 inst
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Woody,
Where do we find that Office switch and shut it off?
All the best,
Morty

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I’ve been fighting Win10 forced update fires and haven’t had a chance to check anything out. Did the original post have any good ideas?

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Instructions on how to locate the CEIP switch using Office 2010 (2013 is nearly identical and 2016 probably the same):

Open one of the Office application, such as Word. It should open with the Home tab active.
Select the File tab.
Select Options in the left-side pane of the File tab. The Word Options window will open.
Select Trust Center in the left-side pane.
Click on the “Trust Center Settings…” button in the right-side pane. The Trust Center window will open.
Select Privacy Options in the left-side pane.
There are 7 checkboxes under Privacy Options in the right-side pane.
“Sign up for the Customer Experience Improvement Program” is 3rd from the top.

This setting is global for the Office suite, so setting it in one application affects all the others.

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Unless I’m misunderstanding, the “CEIP” the quoted commenter is talking about is the Customer Experience Improvement Program, and the setting to turn it off is here (in Word 2010, anyway):

Options –> Trust Center –> Trust Center Settings –> Privacy Options –> Sign up for the Customer Experience Improvement Program

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It is all over the place and many times labelled in a counter-intuitive manner. I remember doing the work for Office 2013 for a managed environment few years ago and I was amazed what I found, especially that it was not so common practice at that time. It was a personal effort not being required by the business to do it, for which the main purpose was in fact to reduce the Internet traffic in a multi-user environment to enhance the performance. There are various hidden options of which some of them can be set only through the Registry or Group Policy if I remember well. At the end of the day it may not be worth the effort. Either accept that Microsoft will collect some information and trust them that they are not personal or use different software, for which there is no guarantee that it does not use the same type of data collection.
It is important to be aware that it happens though and this is why posts like this one from Woody are very useful.

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I believe that updates are the root cause here. One other thing I’ll point out is that CEIP has scheduled tasks that run and in order to completely get them to stop is a 2 fold process. You disable the task and then must disable the trigger. If the trigger is not stopped the process still fires off. I actually ended up deleting the tasks entirely (all tasks related to CEIP as well as the folder) due to them being modified due to patching and updating.

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A few months ago in a comment on one of Woody’s articles here, I described my tussle over the last 6 or so months with the CEIP settings

It’s not as simple as going to the main place where you find this CEIP setting, where it has a yes-or-no option.

That can be totally off (as in, “no I do not want to participate”)
but still, in
Computer Management / System Tools / Task Scheduler / Microsoft / Windows / [dozens of specific listings],
in the specific listings there can be CEIP tasks that are listed and are turned ON, regardless of that “high level” choice about CEIP that most people refer to.

A few months ago, I found some CEIP tasks listed and turned on which I am CERTAIN that from the very moment I received my new computer I had kept turned off.
And that “high level” choice area still showed that my choice was “do not participate”, even though further down in the bowels of the machine (System Tools / Task Scheduler), some CEIP functions were showing as “on” and operational.

(I think I also found things in the Services area that mentioned CEIP, which I disabled or set to manual.)

So I’d caution people against feeling secure about their computer’s collusion with CEIP by trusting what shows up in the “high level” choice box (the one which shows a single yes/no option).

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By the way, as contributor JIY, as quoted in Woody’s article up top, wrote:

“All three Office installs were CEIP “on” (i.e., box checked when looking at that setting).

There is NO CHANCE I installed Office that way.

I know right where that installation checkbox is and that you check it off before “Next”…. I have installed Office at least 100 times.

…Wonder if that switch (now unchecked) will get flipped again next month?”

I wanted to note that besides myself, several AskWoody commenters over the past few months have also described that this has happened to their CEIP settings, including I think “Bobo” (or something similar) who comments frequently here.

I ran across these other mentions of CEIP’s “acting funny” when I was using the search function on AskWoody in the last half hour, trying to find my initial post about CEIP that I think I made a few months ago.

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This post relates to CEIP, but Win7 and not Office.

Update KB3021917 was just uninstalled on my three Win7 x64s. Install date was 2/10/2015.

http://www.sevenforums.com/general-discussion/370639-how-disable-get-rid-application-experience-ceip.html

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3021917

“This update performs diagnostics in Windows 7 Service Pack 1 (SP1) in order to determine whether performance issues may be encountered when the ***latest Windows operating system is installed***. Telemetry is sent back to Microsoft for those computers that participate in the Windows Customer Experience Improvement Program (CEIP). This update will help Microsoft and its partners deliver better system performance for customers who are seeking to ***install the latest Windows operating system***.”

I believe them. See how it’s “computers that participate”, rather than “customers who participate”? I thought anything before March 2015 was safe from “participation”. Guess I was wrong.

MS is redefining “participants” like they are “security”.

So this KB is out and the scheculed tasks are disabled.

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I deleted the CEIP task. I dont want it. I dont need it. So far it has not affected my machine. I check it often because who knows what they’re capable of. They may be able to regenerate the task.

Its my machine with my potential patents and trademarks and hard work on it. I dont want Microsoft to have its hands on it. Its my data. For years we’ve trusted and relied on Microsoft to protect us from malware and viruses but now they’ve actually become one and the same.

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I verify 7 check-boxes, except OneNote (one of the primary applications I use) has only 6.
The 3rd from the top in any case says “Send us information about your use and performance …” — I assume this is synonymous for CEIP. I’m using Office Home and Business 2013, on W7 Pro.

Currently all the other check-boxes are active (except “Send a Smile” which is grayed-out); any recommendations for these?

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