My Privacy Preferences in Windows 10

There has been a lot of talk about privacy concerns in Windows 10 lately, and several good articles have been published covering what settings are available to restrict the amount of information being sent back to Microsoft. I don’t presume to be able to do a better job than any of those authors, but having now had a few customers ask me about this stuff I thought it might be nice to share what settings I personally change on my Windows 10 computers. I will also provide links at the bottom to some of the other articles out there which I used to determine what settings to change, and a couple of tools that the Windows community has made to change these and other options in Windows 10.

Here is the list of the privacy settings I change, where they are, and what they do:

 

Settings -> Privacy -> General

Let apps use my advertising ID for experiences across apps – OFF – This prevents tracking for the purpose of personalizing ads you see

Send Microsoft info about how I write – OFF Prevents sending info about how and what you write to Microsoft

Let websites provide locally relevant content by accessing my language list – OFF Prevents websites from seeing what languages you have installed

 

Settings -> Privacy -> Location

Location for this device is – OFF Turns off location tracking for all users of the computer

 

Settings -> Privacy -> Account Info

Let apps access my name, picture, and other account info – OFF Prevents Windows Apps from being able to access this info

 

Settings -> Privacy -> Feedback & Diagnostics

Windows should ask for my feedback – NEVERSeems self explanatory 🙂

Send your device data to Microsoft – BASIC Minimizes the amount of diagnostic data sent to Microsoft; this cannot be turned off entirely (at least from this interface) except on Enterprise versions of Windows, and it may interfere with Windows Update working properly

 

Settings -> Windows Update -> Advanced Options

Choose how updates are delivered – ON, PCs on my local network This lets your PC share Windows updates with other computers on your network, but not with remote PCs on the internet; some people might also prefer this OFF, I suppose, but leaving it on should reduce bandwidth uses for Windows Updates if you have multiple Windows 10 computers in your home / office

 

Cortana & Search Settings

Cortana can give you suggestions, ideas, reminders, alerts, and more – OFFDisables the Cortana voice assistant, which otherwise can collect info about what you ask it

Search online and include in web results – OFF Makes the Window search option return local file results only, which presumably keeps what you search for from being reported to Bing (the default search engine for web results)

 

Settings -> Privacy -> Speech, Inking, & Typing

Stop getting to know meClick to disableDisables collection of certain personal info and typing habit data. Also turns off dictation and clears what Cortana has learned about you on this device.

 

That is pretty much it. I'm sure there are some options I am not aware of, and so have not covered – so if you have any additional settings that you change for privacy in Windows 10 please share them in the comments section below!


Additional Reading (articles outside Puget Systems):

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/08/windows-10-doesnt-offer-much-privacy-by-default-heres-how-to-fix-it/

http://bgr.com/2015/07/31/windows-10-upgrade-spying-how-to-opt-out/

http://www.pcgamer.com/use-ultimate-windows-tweaker-to-deal-with-windows-10s-privacy-settings/

Community Privacy Setting Tools (use at your own risk!): 

http://www.thewindowsclub.com/ultimate-windows-tweaker-4-windows-10

http://pxc-coding.com/portfolio/donotspy10/

https://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10