Windows 10: How to stop Microsoft from tracking you on Windows 10 computer

One of the most precious things, nowadays, is data and one of the most controversial questions is “Is my data safe?”. Privacy is a major concern and almost all companies, be it Apple, Google, Microsoft, etc are guilty of data collection. We have already seen how you can change Windows 10 Privacy settings – that should suffice for most but if you are looking for more ways to stop Microsoft from tracking you on your Windows 10 PC, then this post will help you.

Stop Microsoft from tracking you


According to Microsoft, your data is collected in order to personalize your experience and if you don’t want to do that, you can disable certain settings from the Settings app to stop Microsoft from tracking you. You may or may not want to disable all of them, as some of them are useful for you. These are the things we are going to do to stop Microsoft from tracking you.

1. Disable Personalize ads
2. Disable Diagnostic & Feedback
3. Disable Activity History
4. Disable Location Tracking
5. Disable Microphone and Camera
6. Stop Contributing your Voice Clip

Let us talk about them in detail.

1] Disable Personalize ads




The first and foremost thing you need to do to stop Microsoft from tracking you is disabling Personalize ads.

This you can do by launching Settings > Privacy and disabling required toggles. You can disable all the toggles if you want, but if you just want to disable Personalize ads, disable the toggle of “Let apps use advertising ID to make ads more interesting to you based on your app activity (Turning this off will reset your ID).

This will not disable ads but the ads won’t be based on your data. So, your privacy will be secured.

2] Disable Diagnostic & Feedback




Microsoft tends to take your data in order to make the components of Windows better. The sad part is, you can not disable this feature completely, but there are some things you can do to improve your privacy.

So, open Settings and click Privacy > Diagnostics & feedback.

Now, to know more about this policy, click “Get more info about these settings” from the Diagnostic data section.

Select “Required diagnostic data” to only give Microsoft, information about your device and its settings, which won’t completely stop Microsoft from spying on you but it is the best we can do.



You can even check diagnostic data, to know what information of you Microsoft has.

To do that, just click Open Diagnostic Data Viewer from “View diagnostic data” or wipe it entirely by clicking on the Delete icon from the “Delete diagnostic data” section.

3] Disable Activity History




Another feature that can be a bit of a concern if you want to ensure privacy is Activity History. “Activity History” is used by Microsoft to help you to jump back into what you were doing if you log in to some other device.

So, if you want to stop Microsoft from tracking you, untick the “Send my activity history to Microsoft” option from Settings > Privacy >Activity History.

4] Disable Location Tracking




If you want to go complete anonymous, disabling Location in Settings can help.

The easiest way to disable Location is by Action Center, just click on the Notification icon from the Taskbar and disable Location. If you are not seeing the option there, launch Settings, click Privacy > Location > Change and use the toggle to disable it.

5] Disable Microphone and Camera




Many companies are found doing shady stuff by accessing the Camera and Microphones of a user without their consent. Therefore, you should always keep your Camera and Microphone and disabled and only enable them when needed.

To disable Camera, open Settings, click Privacy > Camera > Change, and use the toggle to disable it.

To disable Microphone, open Settings, click Privacy > Microphone > Change and use the toggle to disable it.

Read: Free tools to tweak Windows 10 Privacy settings.

6] Stop Contributing your Voice Clip




Microsoft tends to take your Voice Clip in order to improve its Voice Assistant. This is not shady as Microsoft clearly mentions that it is doing this. However, if you don’t use Microsoft’s Voice Assistant Cortana or just don’t want to give your Voice Clip, disable this option.

To do that, launch Settings and click Privacy > Speech > Stop contributing my voice clip.

Hopefully, we have helped you to stop Microsoft from tracking you.

Read Next: How to opt-out of Data Tracking & Targetted ads on the Internet.


This article How to stop Microsoft from tracking you on Windows 10 computer first appeared on TheWindowsClub.com.

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Microsoft Selects Dolby Audio for Windows 10

it would've been great if microsoft added HEVC decoders, LAV filters along with other codecs with Windows 10, and developing WMP to be better than VLC, KMPlayer and such sorts of media players.

Nevertheless, this is good step for microsoft, by far.

 

Windows 10 Tweaks

As you may already know, Windows 10 (as well as Windows 8) allow you to log in with a valid Microsoft account, instead of creating a local account that only works on your machine. However, you may prefer to keep a local account for privacy reasons. If you do, though, some Windows 10 features—like Cortana—may not work. Despite the default behavior, the Windows 10 Store is not one of them. You can still log in to your Microsoft account for just the Store without switching to a full Microsoft account. The process, however, is not terribly obvious. To do so, follow these steps:

• Launch the Store from your Start menu.
• Click the user icon next to the search box.
• Click “Sign-in” from the menu that appears.
• Choose “Microsoft account” and log in like normal.
• When the “Make it yours” box appears do not enter your password. Instead, click “Sign in to just this app instead.”

from Lifehacker

 

Microsoft Botches Up UEFI Support for Windows 7 on ASUS Motherboards



Microsoft suggests updating to Windows 10 to patch Windows 7

• 
  
  
• Chris Merriman
• 
  @ChrisTheDJ
• 05 May 2016

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9 Comments

MICROSOFT HAS confirmed a potentially lappy-borking problem that it won't be fixing, because Windows 7.

Woody Leonhard, the respected Windows columnist, points to a problem involving Asus motherboards, which also appear rebadged in a variety of other manufacturers' machines, and the activation of UEFI Secure Boot for Windows 7 in a patch KB3133977.

Short version: install update, welcome to Borksville, population you.

Both Asus and Microsoft acknowledged the problem. Microsoft entitled the article "BitLocker can't encrypt drives because of service crashes in svchost.exe process in Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2", but we prefer to just call it "Trevor for brevity."

The firm's advice was that it's an optional update, leave well alone, you'll be fine, or alternatively turn secure boot off.

Then Microsoft did a silly, silly thing.

It moved the update from 'optional' to 'recommended' and anyone who reads this site regularly will know what happens when Microsoft does this. That's right boys and girls - it makes it automatically install, unless you've specifically told your machine not to.

So now, if you have one of the affected motherboard and you keep your security updates automatic like wot Microsoft recommends, then your machine will stop working properly.

We should add it's not permanently bricked, but it will take some mucking about in the BIOS to fix and that's a pain even for an experienced computer user.

Microsoft has, by offering a workaround, suggested heavily that it won't be fixing the problem, though we have asked the question, so expect a response in about a fortnight.

But the real kicker is this piece of advice: "Note The Secure Boot feature is supported in Windows 10. To learn more about the security advantages of this feature and about the upgrade path from Windows 7 to Windows 10, go to the following Windows website"

Holy toledo, this company really knows how to rub people up the wrong way.

After all - if the advice is to manually avoid the update or move to a version of the operating system where there's virtually no control over updates, then Microsoft is dealing in massive contradictions.

A more cynical site would suggest that it's yet another example of Microsoft running Windows 7 into the ground and adding built in obsolescence to encourage quicker updates. But we're not that sort of site.

Its the patching to force secure boot that is the problem win 7 does not support secure boot
hence it borks systems and well microsofts answer is Cactus >your Asshole > insert

from the inquirer