Win 7, 8.1 “C” Tuesday patch rollup previews are out – KB 3192403, 3192404

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As expected, the new “previews” of next month’s patch rollups are out. October, 2016 Preview of Monthly Quality Rollup for Windows 7 (KB 3192403) Octo
[See the full post at: Win 7, 8.1 “C” Tuesday patch rollup previews are out – KB 3192403, 3192404]

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Thanks, Woody.

So I’m a beta-tester now for their product patches? Have you any insight into MS’s thinking here? Is this an attempt to reduce the cost of their update infrastructure by off-loading their in-house testing onto their user base?

As a name for this, I suggest “crowd-testing.”

GaryK

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Yep, I talked about it here:

http://www.infoworld.com/article/3128983/microsoft-windows/how-to-prepare-for-the-windows-781-patchocalypse.html

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I just moved to Group B for sure. Maybe Group W to come. Here’s MS’s description.
Let the snooping begin. KB3192403 for Win7.

This package updates the Diagnostic and Telemetry service to provide benefit for enterprises using Upgrade Analytics to plan and manage the Windows upgrade process. This update includes:

Support to enable upload of telemetry and download of settings in an authenticated proxy environment by impersonating the logged-on user
Support to configure a specific proxy to upload telemetry and download settings

The Diagnostic and Telemetry service collects usage and diagnostics information from Windows. You can learn more about the Customer Experience Improvement Program (CEIP) here.

This update uses SSL (TCP Port 443) to download manifests and upload telemetry to Microsoft that uses the following DNS endpoints:

vortex-win.data.microsoft.com
settings-win.data.microsoft.com

This update contains the following two manifests that are used by the service.

telemetry.ASM-WindowsDefault.json
utc.app.json

Registry information
Important Follow the steps in this section carefully. Serious problems might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly. Before you modify it, back up the registry for restoration in case problems occur.

By default, on Windows 7 SP1, support for sending usage and diagnostics information through an authenticated proxy is not disabled (0x0), and the Diagnostic and Telemetry service will impersonate a logged-on user to authenticate with the proxy to send information. You can configure this behavior by using the following registry subkey:

Locate and then select the registry subkey
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREPoliciesMicrosoftWindowsDataCollection
On the Edit menu, point to New, and then click DWORD Value.
Type DisableEnterpriseAuthProxy, and then press the Enter key.
In the Details pane, right-click DisableEnterpriseAuthProxy, and then click Modify.
In the Value data box, type 0 (not disabled) or 1 (disabled), and then click OK.

You can also configure the Diagnostic and Telemetry service to forward usage and diagnostics information to a specific proxy server by using the following registry subkey. You can specify the FQDN or IP address of the proxy server and optionally a port number.

Locate and then select the registry subkey
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREPoliciesMicrosoftWindowsDataCollection
On the Edit menu, point to New, and then click String Value.
Type TelemetryProxy, and then press the Enter key.
In the Details pane, right-click TelemetryProxy, and then click Modify.
In the Value data box, type server:port, and then click OK.

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Link here: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3192403

I bet the reference to CEIP is completely gratuitous. The CEIP article doesn’t mention Diagnostic & Telemetry Service. Turning off CEIP doesn’t turn off DTS, as best I can tell.

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And IE11 cumulative KB3185319 pops again in WU, this time for Windows 7 and 8.1 too
they didn’t add any supersedence info to 3192403/3192404

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Not since KB2952664 anyway

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Good grief. Presumably this only relates to enterprise users looking to upgrade hundreds of PCs with KB2953664 installed? But still, this is exactly why i’m in group b. And if they start pushing it into the security only updates then i’m done. For those of you joining group a, are you still happy to be joining group a after reading that? Any updates that includes keywords such as ‘telemetry’ is an automatic reg flag for me, no way i’m installing that. I added both those domains to my router firewall a while back just to be sure.

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If I were a suspicious person, I might think that these cumulative patches are more about forcing telemetry points on W7/8.1 installs than reducing patch fragmentation. It seems that a Group B strategy is most appropriate at this time.

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Not happy or sad
collateral damage can be neutralized
sc config DiagTrack start= disabled
sc stop DiagTrack
reg delete HKLMSYSTEMControlSet001ControlWMIAutoLoggerAutoLogger-Diagtrack-Listener /f
reg delete HKLMSYSTEMControlSet001ControlWMIAutoLoggerDiagtrack-Listener /f
reg delete HKLMSYSTEMControlSet001ControlWMIAutoLoggerSQMLogger /f
reg delete HKLMSOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionDiagnosticsDiagTrack /f
reg delete HKLMSOFTWAREPoliciesMicrosoftWindowsDataCollection /f
takeown /f %ProgramData%MicrosoftDiagnosis /A /r /d y
icacls %ProgramData%MicrosoftDiagnosis /grant:r *S-1-5-32-544:F /T /C
del /f /q %ProgramData%MicrosoftDiagnosis*.rbs
del /f /q /s %ProgramData%MicrosoftDiagnosisETLLogs*

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After reading PKCano’s post above, I have 2 thoughts. First, MS sure seems to be banking on people being too rushed or impatient when updating to really look at what they’re being given. My second thought/question is simply this, do people still have a chance to switch to Group B? Its no wonder so many people are thinking of just stopping updates altogether.

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HELP – If I now want the OPT WIN7 update now or possibly the IMP WIN7 update next month — should I decline both (as have NOT done the free WIN10 upgrade due to OS/HWR concerns) !

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What does it mean by “preview” like are these bug fixes that are going to be released later this month or in November?

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abbodi1406 from MyDigitalLife Forums reports this:

“^ It contain Unified Telemetry Client (aka KB3068708/KB3080149) ”

https://forums.mydigitallife.info/threads/19461-Windows-7-Hotfix-repository/page1085?p=1284522&viewfull=1#post1284522

This….is just bonkers. We aren’t at the end of the month for this first complete rollup system on Windows 7 and 8.1 and they are shoving the telemetry updates that we have rejected. Microsoft seems desperate to make everyone go on full lockdown and never install any updates….

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A Logitech, probably driver related, update just hit my machine also… Which is weird since I’ve disabled driver scan through WU…

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Woody, I think they are more functional than the Windows 10 Insider Preview patches. They are more like the regular Optional (not Recommended) patches, although they could have more bugs than expected and as such not recommended in other environments than for testing and research. This is documented by Microsoft and in addition they will be provided later, included in the monthly rollup, so this makes them even less suitable to be installed early as they may be revised.
Windows 2012 R2 (and Windows 8.1?) had this process in place for a very long time. The famous rollup KB3000850 (update 3, which made it in the 4th version of the ISO for enteprise) was published in Optional before being fully released and a lot of other rollups for the same operating systems during 2014 had gone through the same vetting before being fully released.
It may be that almost everyone used Windows 7 during that time and they went under the radar. I was following the server though and I know that history too well.

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I wish everyone would stop complaining about telemetry. If you’re going to complain about it for Windows then you also need to be angry at Google, Facebook, Smartphones, and your ISP. I mean Microsoft is at least up front with the fact they’re adding telemetry.

I see lots of people use Google and never complain about it, and then they complain about Windows doing the same thing.

If you don’t like it then don’t use the internet or Windows. Just outright boycott Windows if it makes you that upset. Use a different OS like Linux. I don’t like it anymore than anyone else. But that’s the trade off. You use the OS, they get to collect data.

Also keep in mind. Windows isn’t YOUR software it’s Microsoft’s. I mean if you’re just doing things like surfing the web then Linux will be just fine. Or if you need a certain program or you’re a gamer just dual boot.

Sitting here and being like “EW I DON’T WANT TELEMETRY!” isn’t going to change Microsoft’s motives. But at the end of the day I agree. I hate the telemetry too. But you know what? MICROSOFT DOESN’T CARE! Google doesn’t care, Facebook doesn’t care, and your ISP doesn’t care. You can sit here all day and complain but it won’t change anything.

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What do you think is the best action to follow for this instances? Just allow WU to “install” the superseded patch to keep WU happy or ignore it until Microsoft takes corrective action.
This is very much the same with what happens now between the Security Only and the Monthly rollup and about everyone who is interested has this question in mind.

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No, this also applies to server OS which is not normally upgraded in place, except for very specific situations, which are rather exceptional.

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Are there any known negative effects if the service Diagnostics Tracking Service implemented by KB3068708/KB3080149 included in the latest rollup is disabled?
There are other few services under the name Diagnostic and Diagnostics which were implemented earlier, probably built-in Windows 7 since RTM.

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Can someone please tell me where I can download October 2016’s security-only quality update for a Windows 7 SP 1 32-based system? However hard I search, I can only find KB 3192391 for 64-based systems and all the links I follow lead back there? With many thanks, Hazel

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Looks like KB3192403 contains MS Spyware

“Improved support to specify proxy and enable upload of telemetry and download of settings in an authenticated proxy environment.”

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Wait.

But if you want it right now, go to http://www.catalog.update.microsoft.com/Home.aspx

Use the search term

october 2016 security windows 7

And choose the link for

October, 2016 Security Only Quality Update for Windows 7 (KB3192391)

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Sad to admit it, but you’re right.

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+1

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Next month. November.

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Thanks so much – just needed to know where to find it – it doesn’t seem to be in the Download Centre. Will now wait for the O.K. Hazel

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Woody,

Just to be absolutely clear… If I’ve opted for Group B (Security updates only), then all of these are totally irrelevant to me anyway, correct?

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Correct.

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Well I’m by no means in your league, but I feel there is a plus side to these arguments about whether MS are pushing all this telemetry etc on us and our outcry about it. Firstly as has been mentioned before it is not so easy to change OS’s. Secondly Google et al’s method is not so invasive as MS..
in that MS controls the OS.

But I’m quietly hopeful that someone will come up with ideas/thoughts/actions to help us all overcome
this. This has been shown here on AskWoody….
Your understanding of all this shows that clearly
there are answers for all this……… besides just
boycotting MS updates. LT

Remember: Necessity is the Mother of Invention!

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“Remember when patching was easy?”

Oh God yes I do. I miss those days.

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Okay. Thanks

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Nope, just an extra disabled service
unlike the built-in Diagnostics services which help in troubleshooting, DiagTrack only collects info and upload/report it to msft (or Enterprise proxy)

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Ignore it, just an entry in WU
hiding it will cause the previous cumulative to show up, and so on
the series goes up to around 23 IE11 updates

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I remember monthly Win8.1 rollups takes around two months to swich to be Important updates

but since they stopped, optional updates take just 3 weeks or less to swich to be Recommended (or Important)

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The copy of Windows on my computer is mine. I bought it. It no longer belongs to Microsoft… it did before I bought it, but now it is mine.

I decide what it does. That was the deal I signed up for when I bought Windows 7. Telemetry-free; that was the deal. Individual updates, same as they’ve offered since Windows Updates has existed, part of the deal too.

Now they’ve gone and changed the deal on something I already paid for. Sorry, but I did not agree to these new terms. I agreed to those old ones. One party can’t change the contract after it has been signed and executed by both sides.

So if my copy of Windows is not mine anymore, can I expect to be reimbursed for the remaining years it was supposed to be mine and supported with security updates?

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Woody,

Can one apply October security to a 1511 system that does not have all its own patches applied?

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As I’ve been saying

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No they simply count on most users to do nothing about it. Its a good guess.

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Good assumption on their part.

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Woody, is there any chance this may turn out like the speed up patches, where they only installed if the internet was disconnected? I have installed updates in the belief I’d be staying in group “A” will I still be able to switch groups once you give the go ahead to install this months patches? Thanks in advance.

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You are a beta tester if you agree to be one. It is named “Preview” for a reason.

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I think the reg keys deletion action is a bit excessive, but I take it as an affirmative answer to my enquiry below that DiagTrack service can be disabled without negative consequences. Thanks again.

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There is no reason the stop updating and Group A or Group B are just concepts created by Woody to make things easy to understand for readers here. There is no hard delimitation between them as there seems to be no hard delimitation between different categories of patches, except for the Critical Updates (Important non-security) which are actually the most important and mandatory to be installed to have a system in good shape. There are less than 10 in total. Who is missing any of those should be banned from complaining about problems with Windows Update (but should keep reading this site https://www.askwoody.com/ and this site http://www.infoworld.com/blog/woody-on-windows/ :-D)

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It is the patched proposed for next month. It may be revised or not until then, not recommended outside of testing.

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+1

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It is actually easy right now, after the GWX (Windows 10 upgrade campaign) rush has been over.
Only that a lot of people tend to make it more complicated than it is in reality.
Just follow Woody’s MS-DEFCON and you will be just fine.

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Woody, maybe you should make disabling DiagTrack service as a recommendation, as there are so many people concerned with the privacy issues related to telemetry. This is in addition to not installing KB2952664 and potentially the other patches on the most common block lists like KB3021917, KB3068708, KB3080149. Stopping and disabling this service has been promoted by some of the posters before, especially those promoting various block lists. However you may find that someone in Microsoft would not like it, as it has the potential to break their flow of data back to them.

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Don’t touch these patches!

They’re experimental, touchy things. by the time they’re released “for real” in November we should know more about them.

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Sorry, I didn’t understand the question.

Win10 1511 has only cumulative updates. Install the latest one, and you install all prior.

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Waaaaaaaaallllll… no, the copy of Windows you have is rented. You didn’t buy it.

As far as Microsoft changing the rules on something you paid for, yep, that’s absolutely right.

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Pardon my ignorance.

I installed the October 2016 Monthly Quality Rollup (KB3185330)

(That was before I know one could download the security patches separately.)

Until this month I considered myself in group B, but the combined ‘Rollups’ complicated things.

Are there iffy things in KB3185330 and should I uninstall it?

Thanks!

M.

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Win7 has been doing the preview thing for over a year (can’t remember how far back, but have remarked on it here multiple times), with multiple optional patches, not a rollup.

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OK, I hadn’t planned on installing anything yet anyway.

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KB3185330 is clean
but the next Rollup(s) won’t be

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Command Prompt or PowerShell?

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Command Prompt

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@Woody,
I’m not sure if you explained somewhere in this article, or earlier in the discussion thread, what you meant by ” ‘C’ Tuesday” in the blogpost’s headline,
but if not, you may want to explain to readers what Microsoft means when they say “Week B” and “Week C” — it stands for weeks of the month — to Microsoft, the first week of the month is Week A, the second is Week B, the third is Week C.
So a ” ‘C’ Tuesday patch rollup” means a rollup that Microsoft has released in the third week of the month.
If I hadn’t read that patching ‘overview’ that MS released on the Friday before the new patching system came into play, I would be scratching my head about what you had meant by “C” here.

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Great. You just explained it well. Thanks!

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Yes, prior to spring 2015, patching used to be so easy for me — I just accepted everything they published, optional/recommended/important.

I didn’t have problems with patches breaking my computer, I hadn’t yet been taught by Microsoft that I can’t trust Microsoft, and I didn’t have to spend hours on a monthly basis learning about the intricacies of this subject matter.

Patching is not going to be easy now and going forwards, unless you are in Group A and you have set things up to work relatively automatically.**

Even if you are in Group C/W (no patching), you are probably going to be keeping an eye on what the bigger issues are that the monthly security updates are meant to fix, unless you have firmly shut that door and the computer has no connection to the internet etc. So it’s not going to be “easy” for some Group C/W people. It’s really not going to be easy for Group B people, always watching over their shoulders in case of an ambush.

–
**Even if you are in an automated section of Group A, riding the rapids at the front of the inflatible boat with no life jacket on, if something unexpected happens that tosses you into the water (a problem with a rollup update, maybe it has to be uninstalled and maybe you even have to do a system restore or something tricky like that), it’s not going to be easy to get out of it.

That was always possible in the past, too, but having each update installed individually allowed a problem patch to be pinpointed and remedied individually, whereas now when there are 6 or 12 or however many patches in one rollup update, it seems that there is a greater chance that something can go wrong within a rollup.

And it seems logical, and I think I’ve seen the idea mentioned here by maybe Noel or PK or Canadian Tech, that because a rollup update is more complex and inserts its tentacles into more areas of the computer, backing one up and extracting all the tentacles in the right order successfully might be more complex an operation.

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@Anonymous User,

“I wish everyone would stop complaining about telemetry. If you’re going to complain about it for Windows then you also need to be angry at Google, Facebook, Smartphones, and your ISP.”

People in these discussion threads do often complain about/discuss Google, Facebook, ISPs, privacy loss in general.

—
“I mean Microsoft is at least up front with the fact they’re adding telemetry.”

Well, they haven’t actually been that “upfront” about what they are doing.

They certainly were quite devious in a couple of ways earlier this year — Woody even wrote Infoworld articles about such topics.

They have not been transparent, clear, straightforward, upfront.

—
“I see lots of people use Google and never complain about it, and then they complain about Windows doing the same thing.”

People do complain here about Google — every time I have mentioned Google on Woody’s site, I have complained about it and said I don’t like them, never trusted them, always thought “don’t be evil” was malarkey coming from them, and I block their IPs. Woody always mentions the privacy issues with using Google products, even as he praises those products generally and says he uses them himself.

But Google has been greedy and cunning, in a smooth trajectory, about monitoring, recording, using, and selling their user data for a long time,
while Microsoft has seemed to change their direction on that front in the last two years and are really ramping it up now, tightening the screws tighter and tighter while acting like nothing is happening but more ‘QUALITY’.

—
“You can sit here all day and complain but it won’t change anything.”

People don’t “sit here” and idly complain. They learn from each other, they vent their feelings of betrayal, anger, and annoyance (which is helpful), they figure out strategies to ameliorate the changes they don’t like.

Microsoft experts and ordinary customers are rightfully upset about some of these issues, and it’s normal and positive that they are expressing what is bothering them and trying to get advice about the best way to handle it.

And, Microsoft does listen, at least when it hits them where it hurts and they have no choice, and they do row back from some things.

—
“If you don’t like it then don’t use the internet or Windows. Just outright boycott Windows if it makes you that upset. Use a different OS like Linux.”

This is a weak argument that has already been addressed here in the past.

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@Dave,

It’s fine if you didn’t accept the free Win10 upgrade. That is in the past (probably), so don’t worry about that now.

If you have Win7, you will first need to decide whether you want to be in Group A (downloading the normal monthly rollup each month) or Group B (downloading only the security update each month).

After you decide what group you want to be in, just WAIT for Woody to announce on this website that it is time for people to install the update rollup. He will give instructions for Group A and for Group B on how to do the installations.

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@CH100,

There is a definite difference between the action pathways of Group A and Group B, which will become clear very quickly, if it’s not already.

The fact that Microsoft is (and did in the past) smudging the differences between what is security and non-security, between what is important and optional, is not in Woody’s control and does not change the fact that the patch-updating pathways of Group A and Group B are totally different.

If the pathways of Group A and Group B were not clearly different, Microsoft wouldn’t have described them as being so to professional IT people at enterprises that only want to/are allowed to install the non-cumulative security-only monthly update package.

(Microsoft didn’t use the terms Group A and Group B, of course, and they would not promote the option of Group C/W!)

Naturally, there is their current smudging of categories, and the intended and unintended overlap and confusion that will be coming into play, and maybe this will mean that people can only be reasonably hope to be in Group A or Group C/W after the next couple of months, but conceptually at this point, there is a clear category that is Group B which is separate from Group A and Group C.

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In the last sentence of my above post, I meant “backing one up” in the sense of physically reversing it, removing it, like backing up a truck/lorry from a loading dock –
not in the “backing up” sense of making a copy of it.

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Thank you, the more I read about all of this the more I find that Askwoody is the 1 place where I can actually understand at least a little I read.

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That said, this is the first time I’ve seen MS spill so many beans about its snooping activities for “normal” users.

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Thank you!

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Once again, many thanks abbodi86

I just compared the above script with your “W10-Block.cmd” script posted on MyDigitalLife Forums.

Are the lines prior to “sc.exe config DiagTrack start= disabled >nul 2>&1” no longer relevant since the W10 upgrade program is over?

Likewise, are the lines after “del /f /q /s %ProgramData%MicrosoftDiagnosisETLLogs* >nul 2>&1” no longer relevant for the same reason?

Thanks in advance

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MS would like you to believe that it’s still theirs, but that’s never been fully tested in court, and MS knows they only get the benefit of the doubt as long as there is doubt.

It’s clearly not rented, as rental involves a payment per unit of time for use, and Windows 7 is a lifetime license that is paid for once. They only agree to _update_ it for a certain length of time, but there’s nothing in there that says I have to stop using it beyond a certain date.

I think of it like this. Lets say my car is a Toyota Corolla, and that it is fully paid off. I don’t own “the Corolla.” I can’t make Toyota Corollas and sell them; I’d be sued in short order if I tried. The design (the source code, so to speak) and appearance is their intellectual property. However, MY Corolla is mine. It doesn’t in any way belong to Toyota anymore. I can do anything I want with it… modify it, fail to maintain it, destroy it if I wish. I can repair it myself or I can have a mechanic of my choice repair it, or I can use the expensive one at the dealer where I bought it.

The idea that a physical object can be subject to the same view of IP that we currently hold about software has been tried by John Deere. I’ve never been in the market for any of their products, so I did not follow it closely… but I know I never will buy anything of theirs.

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Well put. I wonder if it’ll ever be tested in court?

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Yes, the Upgrade entries might not be relevant anymore, but i left them just in case

W10-Block.cmd handles both Appraiser (KB2952664) and UTC (KB3068708/KB3080149)
so the schedule tasks lines are needed

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Just to clarify, by stopping the 3 Scheduled Tasks previously mentioned and the DiagTrack service, would the telemetry traffic stop without deleting the relevant registry keys or the registry keys need to be removed too, even if the scheduled tasks and the service are stopped?

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Thanks, yes I know what would happen by hiding the most recent updates.
If you read many of my previous posts, dating many months ago, you would notice that I am against hiding updates. The reason is that once Microsoft expires hidden updates, there are orphan entries left in the DataStore.edb and this can be normally cleaned only by resetting (deleting) the database. I don’t know how damaging that fact is, I just don’t like the idea of having a database with entries which are left behind.

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My prediction is that the Security Only updates will gradually disappear, except for very specific situations, similar to the model implemented in Windows 10. It is only a temporary concession and a PR exercise from Microsoft to allow the Security Only updates to sweeten the current deal that they propose. As we already see, there are problems with Security Only and Security Monthly updates which are not detected correctly. And why would both be named “Security”, unless the current situation is only a transition towards a unified model?

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They stopped for 8.1/2012R2 in December 2014 but now I think they are on the way back.

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I think you are right with the timing for Windows 7, but before Windows 7, this model was implemented on Windows 8.1/2012R2 for about 1 year during 2014. Maybe the very first major rollup in October 2013 should be included here too.
It is not something completely new, this only proves that Microsoft has been trialling this concept for a long time.

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I am not in favour of automatic updates and early installation, but I understand what you try to suggest about Group A being “like” on automatic.

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Likely. And not welcome.

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It is the Microsoft internal slang explained here https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/windowsitpro/2016/10/07/more-on-windows-7-and-windows-8-1-servicing-changes/

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ch100,

I don’t have any service called ‘diagtrack’, ‘Diagnostics Tracking Service’, or ‘Connected User Experiences and Telemetry’ in my Windows 7. I am all up to date on updates other than this month’s (KB3185330 & KB3188740), as well as KB3185911 (kernel update; seemed to cause crashes for me) and anything related to telemetry or “upgrading to the latest version,” as described in the KBxxxxxxx text.

The main suspects appear to be KB3080149, KB3068708, as well as its superseded predecessor KB3022345. All three of those seem to install or modify diagtrack.dll.

This is a sinister sign of things to come with Windows Update, but it doesn’t seem to be a disaster just yet. Even if I end up having to take this thing to get my security updates at some point, it looks to be relatively easy to disable by means of sc delete diagtrack… and it looks like you could also unregister diagtrack.dll.

That doesn’t make it okay, of course… I hope keeping Windows 7 up to date with security updates doesn’t turn into a battle with my own PC the way it would be under Windows 10.

There were others I had hidden,

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I don’t know for sure
but i believe the AutoLogger and other registres handle the collecting, the Service and Scheduled Tasks handles the uploading process

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+1

I have never seen a company destroy its trust and good will before in quite this way. Business schools still teach how NOT to manage by studying the 1985 New Coke fiasco. Msft has made that corporate disaster look laughably trivial. The arrogance of their management is breathtaking. After decades of using Windows I am finally leaving for Linux. I have lost all respect for msft and now regard the company with the same wariness that I view overseas hackers. I hope that I see the day when the DOJ carefully examines the fraud, theft of service, and predatory behavior of this formerly trusted and admired company. Corporations are people, no? Lock ’em up.

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ch100

re: ” Who is missing any of those should be banned from complaining about problems with Windows Update…”

Are you volunteering for head censor?

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Thanks again

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I am asking only to try to figure out a less intrusive procedure which is easy to be understood by everyone. MDL had a different core audience

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@Ascaris
You say
“I am all up to date on updates other than this month’s (KB3185330 & KB3188740), as well as KB3185911 (kernel update; seemed to cause crashes for me) and anything related to telemetry or “upgrading to the latest version,” as described in the KBxxxxxxx text.”
and later
“There were others I had hidden.”

This may make a difference because we don’t know which are “others”, although it is clear that you have a good understanding of the issue as you mentioned the retired KB3022345, rarely mentioned before and you are familiar with the “sc” command.

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They should self-censor themselves or use only the so called “dumb” terminals and connect to the cloud. Most will get there in few years anyway

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We are more than 30 years later, things have changed a lot and the current coke is not the original coke. The current generation has been trained to be consumers and not producers and to accept cheap products as disposable commodities instead of quality products at a higher price. It all started around that time, mid 80s. Microsoft is doing very well in this environment at least for now as you can see from the news just posted by Woody.

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My procedure is not intrusive
however, one can drop deleting files, and just disable service/delete registry

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@poohsticks,

Please don’t ever stop posting. They are always informative and thought provoking; and often leave me in tears of laughter (Clapham Common Bomb Shelters, ladies squatting outside cafes, Antimalware quarantining Windows OS).

In response to your comment about patching once being so easy; please note that having opted for Group W (or is it now C), updating couldn’t be easier for me. I don’t.

Am using the time gained by not updating to follow up posts on telemetry – doubt if my register has ever been so clean, or scheduled tasks so well organised. I’m confident my W7SP1x64 will still be functioning well after 2020 despite all the doom and gloom I am hearing. Did take the precaution to install a 2nd internal drive on 1 October for regular backups.

Did something similar back in 2008. Had 3 XP machines, so kept 1 off-line for back up and left the other 2 on-line. All still alive and kicking. Just want to see how long they will last. Also still run a Vista machine which I stopped updating sometime in 2014.

I suggest that there is life outside of updating.

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Oops! That was a fragment from a bit that was meant to be edited out. It originally read something like “There were others I had hidden, but they were apparently superseded, as they no longer appear in the list.”

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This might be an overly banal question, but is there a comprehensive list of all the clean updates/patches, or alternatively of those one might want to avoid? Seems like such an obvious thing to have (or is there an even easier way to get all the _good_ patches and none of the bad ones), but I can’t find it anywhere.

All the valuable info I can find here is partial, or rather, fragmented across many pages and a myriad of comments making it extremely cumbersome and confusing to compile the list of wanted patches. Wouldn’t it be way more practical to have a central repository (a simple text list at a fixed url would do) to which you gurus would simply add new patches as you confirm them to be good.

Say one does a clean install of Win 7 SP1 from the original DVD. There are years of patches missing, so how would one go about getting (preferably dl-ing for future usage, not directly applying) them (all) and avoiding the bad ones. I’m sure the info is here, but piecing it all together seems like a very convoluted puzzle – unless I’m missing something very obvious of course.

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The problem is that there’s no single, reliable definition of what’s OK and what isn’t.

I’ve run many blocklists here on AskWoody. Coming up with a whitelist would be a horrendous job – subject to many of the same questions about what’s good and what isn’t.

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Too chicken to delete all the registry entries. But I stopped and disabled the DiagTrack service and then deleted these files:

%ProgramData%MicrosoftDiagnosis*.rbs
%ProgramData%MicrosoftDiagnosisETLLogs*

What else to disable/delete? Perhaps entries in the Task Scheduler? Ideas?

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Deleting AutoLogger-Diagtrack-Listener key is an important step to stop the logging, otherwise those files will be recreated

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Thanks! I’ll keep an eye on the %ProgramData%MicrosoftDiagnosis directory and in case the files are indeed recreated I’ll delete them once more. The Diagnosis directory is now empty except for some files in DownloadedSettings sub-directory.

Rather than deleting the AutoLogger-Diagtrack-Listener key, which has many sub-keys, I changed Start from 1 to 0 per: “Configuring and Starting an AutoLogger Session”: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa363687%28v=vs.85%29.aspx

“Start – REG_DWORD – To have the AutoLogger session start the next time the computer is restarted, set this value to 1; otherwise, set this value to 0.”

Maybe this helps!?

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The file AutoLogger-Diagtrack-Listener.etl was recreated .. so it seems one more registry setting must be changed/disabled.

I already changed 1) so this concerns disabling 2). Let me summarize:

1) HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMControlSet001ControlWMIAutoLoggerAutoLogger-Diagtrack-Listener

In right-side pane, change the value of Start DWORD to 0 to turn off the auto logger program.

2) HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMControlSet001ControlWMIAutologgerAutoLogger-Diagtrack-Listener{DD17FA14-CDA6-7191-9B61-37A28F7A10DA}

In right-side pane, look for the DWORD Enabled. Its value would be set to 1 by default. Double-click on the DWORD and change its value from a 1 to 0 to disable the task.

Restart your computer to take effect.

Note: I didn’t figure this out! The above and more can be found here: http://www.askvg.com/tip-disable-telemetry-and-data-collection-on-windows-7-and-8/

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It’s easier to just delete the whole key
no OS functions will be affected

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Thanks! I may well do that .. but, for now, one step at a time.

By the way, I gave up on ‘B’ and am now ‘A’, so, that’s probably why DiagTrack and Telemetry made its way onto my computer at this time. Oh well!

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Well, unlike Windows 10, Telemetry added to Windows 7/8.1 is easily identified and can be controlled or disabled effectively

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I noticed some but so far no critical features that are in the rollup patch for Windows 7 Pro. 64 bit. I am in Group B but am wondering and hoping that I will be able to remain in this group in the future because eventually some “new” feature that fixes something will be something I need and then will have to roll into Group A. I really am annoyed at Microsoft for these patch changes and I have actually heard of none of my friends who work with computing for a living being happy about the changes. I plan on having Windows 7 as being my last Microsoft PC due to the addition of the telemetry tracking that I do not like or want even if it is anonmymous.

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I’m with you…

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