Connected User Services

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I’m on a mini-vacation, still connected, but not surrounded by my usual array of machines. So I was very disheartened to read this story:http://www.gh
[See the full post at: Connected User Services]

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https://www.reddit.com/r/windows/comments/3tf4cf/did_the_latest_windows_update_reset_anyone_elses/

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The folks at BetaNews are reporting on this as well: http://betanews.com/2015/11/20/windows-10s-privacy-invading-features-arent-gone-in-threshold-2/

I wonder how long it will be before Microsoft renames and reissues the Windows 7 and 8.1 tracking to sneak it past those who have uninstalled or disabled it thus far?

Regardless of whether that happens or not, Microsoft’s behaviour the last several months has completely destroyed any trust or benefit of the doubt I may have given them in the past.

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What would all our PC’s look like by now without your guidance

Thank, Woody.

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Yes, it is true. I had disabled all of the privacy settings in Windows 10 and now that I’ve updated to 1511 and had to go into all of the privacy settings to re-disable them as well as services, default apps, etc. It appears that MS is going to start making sure that we keep what they give us whether we want it or not, or whether it is good for us or not.

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@Brian –

Do you have a list of what you had to re-disable?

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@Russell –

HA! Xerox Stars perhaps???

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@MikeFromMarkham re: not trusting Microsoft anymore: You and me both. Obviously the MS folks that were dictating policy years ago when there was some nod to customer values being a priority are gone or out of the loop. “Hey, it’s free, you’ve forgone the right to complain.”

Doesn’t this sound like fun to look forward to… needing to reset the privacy settings, every month or with every major update to Win10? And it may just be a matter of time before they start disabling some of the settings or workarounds so you *can’t* elect a higher degree of privacy.

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After reading the ghacks article I looked at my services page found the name changed but it was disabled. I give credit for that to SpoyBot Search & Detroy Anti-Beacon software. Stops all the home calls. If you use it pay attention to the note about using the win10 mail client.

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Unfortunately no. I just went back through all of the settings in the privacy tab and disabled any of them that were enabled. The same for the services. The tasks “services” had to be disabled also as some of them were re-enabled or renamed so that they were active again. All of the apps/tiles (x-box, cortana, photos, etc) that I uninstalled were installed again, but that’s no suprise as usually those get updated so basically it’s like a new install of the apps. The “Connected User Experiences and Telemetry” is a actual service but I don’t remember if it was enabled and I disabled it. It appears that some of the other settings (require password on resume, etc.) were re-enabled also, but I haven’t had the time to go back through everything to check it all.

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On Windows 7 there’s now a new fancy “Internet Explorer ETW Collector Service”. Or as I call it: another service to disable. Internet Explorer has not needed one before, so why now? See what you did Microsoft, I now trust nothing you “fix or improve”.

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Does this change mean that Spybot Anti-Beacon will no longer block telemetry ?

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The November 20 Wall Street Journal section “B” has article entitled, “Microsoft Renews Pitch to Business.” The article briefly discusses a new project with Hewlett-Packard, including this:

“The new collaboration with HP Enterprise takes advantage of Windows as a Service, Microsoft’s term for offerings that include automated management of updates to the operating system. The as-a-service approach will help HP Enterprise’s corporate customers manage software on their computers, said Ajit Moodliar, a Microsoft director of business development.”

While the article refers to Windows 10 and not previous versions of Windows, something odd happened yesterday on my Windows 7 HP desktop computer. I happened to look just as it presented a screen saying “You are logging off” and then it shut down and rebooted. When Windows came up, I had a new HP Support Assistant icon on the desktop. I deleted it and shut down the computer. On the next boot the icon was back. Once again I deleted it and restarted. So far the icon has not returned. I am not sure this is related to the article.

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@Bruce —

Don’t know.
best to check with them. But you caan bet they’re working on it.

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The answer is yse, they renamed the service. Description: “The Connected User Experience and Telemetry service enables features that support in-application and connected user experiences. Additionally, the service manages the event driven collection and transmission of diagnostic and usage information (used to improve the experience and quality of the Windows Platform) when the diagnostics and user privacy option settings are enabled under Feedback and Diagnostics.

As I have reported before – each time we have an update, particularly with a Build change, I have to go back and reset many of the settings. Default apps, Apps that run in the background, sync for devices that don’t pair under “Other Devices,” up until the last build to turn off the peer-to-peer Win Updates, etc. Every time I click on something that requires a browser, if there is no browser open it asks if I want to keep using Firefox and gives me the other choices (Edge-recommemded, IE).

My “People” app still abends immediately after opening since the last build, er…, service pack, er… Fall Update .

Glad I’m running this in a Virtual Machine and not as my primary!

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@David – It’s bad enough having to check if MS has “pulled a fast one” every time they issue updates for Windows 10… What bothers me just as much is the apparent desperation with which Windows 10 is being pushed on Windows 7 and 8.1 users even after they’ve made it clear they don’t want it now, or possibly ever… And MS has already stated that harassment is going to get worse in 2016 … It’s enough to make me decide move all of my workhorse computers to Linux by next summer and keep Windows on just one or two occasional use machines just in case I really need it for something… I might even put Windows 10 on one of those machines some day.

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This is the way of the M$ future it seems. I’m still on 7 and don’thave plans to extend to 10, however what I have done is used my AV software solution to deny the OS the right to change certain values on my current machine. I also block outbound traffic to the M$ telemtry servers I know of. To take that a further step you would need to look at the outbound traffic you machine sends. When you do that disable antying you will not need then start a capture. There are several resources to dig into how to read them, but this is a lot of techinical work. I may use an old 2008 R2 server as a WSUS server and take the Win7 server off the internet entirely. This all come down to control….yours or theirs. It’s not bad now, but the future might be different which is unfortunate.

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As an added precaution, I’d review the scheduled tasks and delete them. You have to at least in Win7 have to disable the triggers as well as the task, because if the trigger is still there it’ll run. Future updates will put them back I am sure.

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Here is the authoritative source for those inclined to get into the details.
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/mt577208(v=vs.85).aspx
The article is long and almost everything applies to individual users too, the generic explanations, policies and their registry equivalents.
How the information in the Microsoft documentation is utilised, it is up to everyone to decide.
I am currently testing 2 Group Policies on Windows Pro:
– Allow Telemetry with the value of Basic.
– Do not show feedback notifications with the value of Enabled.
Unlike stopping services as suggested elsewhere, this is fully supported configuration.
The settings managed by Group Policy are configurable in the GUI, with the advantage that should stick if Microsoft decides in the future to reset them.
If it is enough to enhance user privacy, it is very difficult to assess and require complex network and OS monitoring which I am really not inclined to do for now.

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@Woody,

FYI….

“Microsoft yanks latest Windows 10 release from its download server
Without explanation, Microsoft has removed the just-released November update (version 1511) from the download page it offers to the general public. The media creation tool now downloads the initial release of Windows 10 instead. [Update: Microsoft tries to explain.]”

http://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-yanks-latest-windows-10-release-from-its-download-server/

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FROM Bobo…
On Windows 7 there’s now a new fancy “Internet Explorer ETW Collector Service”

TO Bobo…
I see posts related to this Service on Windows 7 dating back several years so it’s not anything new. Copy/Paste what’s between the quotes above into a Google search and you’ll see links related to this Service dating back to at least 2009.

The Service is set to Manual, it’s not started, and it shows no dependencies. I don’t know what actually triggers it but my best guess is it’s related to crash reporting for IE.

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Where is the disconnect within Microsoft? CEO Satya Nadella said a few days ago, “We will also be transparent about both the collection of data and the uses of data.”

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Yep, saw that, Thanks for the heads up!

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The disconnect? The disconnect is to assume sincerity on behalf of the CEO.

Anyone who thinks he is unaware of what is going on and that a group of rogue managers has taken it upon themselves to implement the anti-customer strategy of the past several months is well, deluded.

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@louis There is also the TechBench site https://www.microsoft.com/en-US/software-download/techbench which still provides the original 10240 build.
I downloaded the ISO for 1511 from the MCT site while still available, however it was downloaded for reference, just in case, so it was not tested.
Build 1511 or the equivalent update are not yet available on WSUS.
Is Microsoft building few last minute fixes and potentially a re-release?
Related, WSUS comes with KB3116097 as Critical Update so called OOBE ZDP, needed but will not install automatically. However I installed it manually without any problem.
Does anybody know what this update is about? There is official documentation about this update which does not seem to clarify much.

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@louis There is also the TechBench site https://www.microsoft.com/en-US/software-download/techbench which still provides the original 10240 build.
I downloaded the ISO for 1511 from the MCT site while still available, however it was downloaded for reference, just in case, so it was not tested.
Build 1511 or the equivalent update are not yet available on WSUS.
Is Microsoft building few last minute fixes and potentially a re-release?
Related, WSUS comes with KB3116097 as Critical Update so called OOBE ZDP, needed but will not install automatically. However I installed it manually without any problem.
Does anybody know what this update is about? There is official documentation about this update which does not seem to clarify much.

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@anonymous

The service might have existed on Google, but it did not exist on any of my computers before last month. I never use Internet Explorer so I don’t need any service affiliated with it running on my computer at any time. I did try Internet Explorer a few seconds recently to check its version number. A few hours later I was checking something else in the task manager, and there was an instance of iexplore.exe still running. Wonderful, I’m sure it was so it could send crash reports..

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@ Howard…

Are you aware of the four Scheduled Tasks in MicrosoftWindowsSetupGWX?

These four tasks should be disabled and the “GWX” folder in WindowsSystem32 must be renamed as those Tasks point to that folder.

I tend not to delete folders and Scheduled Tasks as I’ve experienced irreversible problems by doing so in the past. Simply disabling those four Scheduled Tasks and renaming that folder works fine.

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And now, this :

http://www.ghacks.net/2015/11/24/beware-latest-windows-10-update-may-remove-programs-automatically/

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Woody, where are you? We are counting down to December Black Tuesday and need your advice on what November updates to install or hide.

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@Deborah –

Patience.

I’ve been on a semi-vacation, and only just started clearing out the backlog. I haven’t seen any November patch that’s been the source of a major breach. Or any breach, for that matter, as long as you’re not using Internet Explorer.

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Woody,
Sorry to say, I never heard of Ghacks until this post. Then I looked them up. Found this stunner warning about Chrome addons: http://www.ghacks.net/2015/11/21/verify-google-chrome-extensions-before-you-install-them/
Any new information on Ghacks?
Morty

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Ghacks has been turning out some very reliable stuff lately.

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