Technoglitch
Core Member
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.”
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:
Windows 10 Worst Feature Now Installing On Windows 7 And Windows 8
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.”
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:
Windows 10 Worst Feature Now Installing On Windows 7 And Windows 8
