Gordon Kelly
Last week
came the warning, now comes the roll out. The most criticised aspect of Windows 10 is coming to Windows 7 and Windows 8 after Microsoft released upgrades which enable the company to extensively track what users are doing. The releases bring good and bad news…
The Bad News
The three updates in question
–
KB3075249,
KB3080149 and
KB3068708 (which replaces
KB3022345) – all add “customer experience and diagnostic telemetry” to Windows 7 and Windows 8. This is shorthand for monitoring how you use Windows and sending that data back to Microsoft HQ for evaluation.
Worse still software specialist site
gHacks, which first discovered the tracking, notes these updates will ignore any previous user preferences:
“These four updates ignore existing user preferences stored in Windows 7 and Windows 8 (including any edits made to the Hosts file) and immediately starts exchanging user data with vortex-win.data.microsoft.com and settings-win.data.microsoft.com.”
Windows 7 and 8 are now receiving updates to allow more user data capture – Image credit Microsoft
The Good News
Now they have been launched the positive news is KB3075249 and KB3080149 have been classed as ‘Optional’ in Windows Update. This means they won’t install without Windows 7 and Windows 8 users giving them express permission to do so (a key difference to Windows 10).
On the flip side KB3068708 is classified as ‘Recommended’ which means Windows 7 and Windows 8 PCs with Windows Update set to automatic will install it by default. That said for the update to appear in the first place you will need to be a participant in Microsoft’s Customer Experience Improvement Program, an opt-in program which already has you agreeing to send user data to the company.
As PCWorld
notes, unfortunately CEIP members who now feel uncomfortable about being a part of the program will have to jump through hoops to get out of it:
“Most programs make CEIP options available from the Help menu, although for some products, you might need to check settings, options, or preferences menus. Some pre-release products that are under development might require participation in CEIP to help ensure the final release of the product improves frequently used features and solves common problems that exist in the pre-release software.”
Windows 10 is great software with questionable user policies and now Windows 7 and Windows 8 show signs of following in its footsteps – Image credit: Microsoft
PCWorld also confirms gHacks observation that KB3075249, KB3080149 and KB3068708 all bypass user privacy settings in the Windows hosts file, so the easiest option for Windows 7 and Windows 8 users is to uninstall and then hide it.
This can be done by following these instructions…
To Uninstall the updates in Windows 7 and Windows 8:
- Go to Control Panel
- Go to Programs
- Go to Uninstall or change a program and locate them by name
- Double click on each update to uninstall it or right click on the update and choose uninstall
To hide the updates so they won’t install in future:
- Go to Control Panel
- Go to System and Security
- Go to Windows Update
- Go to Check for updates
- Find them in pending updates, right click on each and select ‘Hide’
The Future With Microsoft
Of course the bigger question than how to deal with these individual updates, is what the future holds for Microsoft customers on all versions of Windows.
I’ve
long argued that under Satya Nadella the new Microsoft is operating more akin to Google: subsidising software prices in exchange for user data. Microsoft has also taken on Google’s stance of supplying its services widely to rival platforms (though possibly only because Microsoft has lost the smartphone war).
So will these attempts at data mining escalate?
Given the criticism the company has received over
privacy invasions in Windows 10, I had hoped a compromise would be found. Instead Microsoft’s ploy of bringing more tracking to older Windows versions suggests this won’t be the case.
As such, once the (justifiable) fanfare over the free release of Windows 10 has died down, the next 6-12 months is going to be crucial for Microsoft and its customers alike.
