[flower-giraffe]

I observed first hand that disabling sending telemetry also disabled the history for win+r.

It’s also quite easy to observe that when you type anything into the start search interface you are steered or defaulted to searching Microsoft internet services.

[gruez]

> I observed first hand that disabling sending telemetry also disabled the history for win+r.

1. Okay, but how's that relevant to my original question? Is the history being broken supposed to be smoking gun evidence that windows is sending your "history from Windows R (run)" to microsoft?

2. I just tried and failed[1] to reproduce this on a VM with a fresh install of Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC 2019 with "telemetry disabled". There isn't an universal standard for "telemetry disabled", but at the very least I have the "Allow Telemetry" and various search related group policies activated. I suspect what's happening is that you ran one of those "disable telemetry scripts", and that unintentionally broke it.

[1] https://i.imgur.com/WkbnBlM.png

>It’s also quite easy to observe that when you type anything into the start search interface you are steered or defaulted to searching Microsoft internet services.

but we were talking about the run (windows-R) dialog, not the start menu?

[flower-giraffe]

> I suspect what's happening is that you ran one of those "disable telemetry scripts", and that unintentionally broke it.

I am 100% certain that’s not the case. — Yes - the point is when setting all the most private privacy options on Windows 10 stops keeping a win+r run history. I didn’t go as far as installing a custom root CA and intercepting binary telemetry data to prove that the data was being sent. I think the fact that the MRU list is disabled strongly suggests that the product team assumed or new that it was collected.

If your experience is based on LTSC Windows/Office you probably have a different experience.