After Windows 10 was found to be guilty of transferring a constant stream of information to Microsoft servers, it looks like Windows 7 and Windows 8 users won’t be spared either. Ghacks reports that Windows 7 and 8 users who until now were spared against any reports of data monitoring are now plagued with monitoring menace with the release of Telemetry & Data Collection Updates to both the operating systems.
Telemetry and Data Collection
The update apparently has hit Windows 8.1, Windows Server 2012 R2, Windows 7 Service pack 1(SP1) and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1. Here are namely, recent updates that are involved in monitoring activity.
- KB3021917
- KB3022345
- KB3068708
- KB3075249
- KB3080149
Added to the above list, below 3 updates are also suspected to be leaking information while upgrading to Windows 10,
- KB2952664
- KB2990214
- KB3035583
While Microsoft has always maintained that the data captured from these updates help make the ads shown to the users much more relevant, you may want to do without these updates to be sure about your privacy.
Users can uninstall these updates from the Control Panel. Once uninstalled, the updates have to be marked as hidden or Windows will try to install them again. You are requested to take a backup and then uninstall since any unwanted behavior in the OS cannot be completely ruled out post updates removal. A tool has also appeared on GitHub, that promises to remove these updates.
Via Ghacks.net & Reddit.
