[bsmartt]

well good news, this feature can be 100% disabled by your IT team, and you dont need these snapdragon high end consumer laptops in your hospital anyway.

why am i having to defend microsoft? have we all lost our minds? or do we just shoot first, ask questions later for the lulz

[multimoon]

You shouldn’t be and Microsoft deserves this kind of behavior.

This falls well into the category of a feature that nobody asked for and which shouldn’t exist. Microsoft will make this opt out (if we’re lucky enough) and if even then it will be difficult and hidden to do so, so they’ll trap all the normal users and harvest insane amounts of data.

I have no problems shooting first when the receiving end is Microsoft, because it’s pretty much always deserved.

[Eddy_Viscosity2]

It's opt out now, but they have a history of making 'options' into 'not optional'. They absolutely deserve all the criticism because all of their past actions gives us a pretty good sense of what they will do in the future - which is to screw over users by making the OS do things the user doesn't want the OS to do!

[Martinussen]

> This falls well into the category of a feature that nobody asked for and which shouldn’t exist.

I am curious what makes you say that. I don't use Windows any more, but I have been experimenting with setups that basically try to do the exact same thing a fair bit lately. I've tried multiple different projects from different authors/teams that solve the same basic problem, it definitely doesn't seem like something nobody is asking for/wants.

[hostyle]

"Move fast and break things."

"Its easier to ask for forgiveness than ask for permission."

There are many other well known mantras that i can't recall right now. SV and VC companies do not care in the slightest about users and their data - only about making more money (which these days always seems to involve stealing^Wwarehousing more and more data).

[the_snooze]

I swear, big tech runs on the value system of domestic abusers:

* I want to know everything about you and who you talk to (privacy violations)

* I can change deals unilaterally and do whatever I want without your say-so (disrespecting user agency)

* You can't leave me (vendor lock-in)

[slowmovintarget]

I get your point, but Microsoft is neither Silicon Valley, nor a Venture Capital firm. They are "Big Tech" though.

[sfn42]

BT

[belter]

Please point to a documentation reference that shows an officially supported way, to completely disable all telemetry on Windows OS...

[nullfield]

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/privacy/manage-con...

is about as close as we get.

[belter]

If you search the page for telemetry you will notice that you have to create a non existing Registry key, under the promise many services will stop working...

Also: "Services Configuration is used by Windows components and apps, such as the telemetry service, to dynamically update their configuration. If you turn off this service, apps using this service may stop working."

But they are referring to telemetry as in updating apps metadata so using weasel words.

It just ways to manage and minimize telemetry data Windows 10 and Windows 11 send to Microsoft, focusing on settings, Group Policies, and registry configurations. It explicitly states that certain data connections,cannot be disabled. This implies that completely removing telemetry is impossible.

They are also known to re-enable these settings with each Windows Update....

[benterix]

It doesn't show how to disable all of it, only some. (Not to mention that they deliberately change things between upgrades so your setting may or may not work tomorrow.)

[TiredOfLife]

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/compliance/regulatory/offe...

[belter]

This is about Azure Cloud and Office 365. No mention of Windows OS.

Also by the way...although unrelated to the question, does not by itself guarantee compliance, as addressed in the FAQ:

"Does having a Business Associate Agreement with Microsoft ensure my organization's compliance with HIPAA and the HITECH Act?"

"No. By offering a Business Associate Agreement, Microsoft helps support your HIPAA compliance. However, using Microsoft services does not on its own achieve HIPAA compliance..."

Not to mention that HIPAA compliance specifically protects health information (ePHI). It does not cover other types of data, so companies like Microsoft can collect and use telemetry data without violating HIPAA, even if this raises privacy issues.

[doublepg23]

Not sure if you’ve been following Computex but every manufacturer I saw promised Copilot+ support with the upcoming crop of x86 chips. This isn’t going to be a one-off thing on ARM.

[EdwardDiego]

You know how I said "our customers"? Yeah, so it's _their_ computers facing this issue, and we have no control over the computers they use our software on. Because, obviously.

> do we just shoot first, ask questions later for the lulz

Oh mate, this is so ironic that I'm also convinced you're doing it on purpose.