No Web, No Win10, No Mas
Share this story. Windows 10 launch. Updated, August 5 @ 11:29am BST (6:29 EDT): This story has been updated with a few more Windows 10 features that gather up your data and/or behaviour and send it back to Microsoft, and some suggestions on how to disable them.
Original story Windows 10, by default, has permission to report a huge amount of data back to Microsoft. By clicking through 'Express Settings' during installation, you allow Windows 10 to gather up your contacts, calendar details, text and touch input, location data, and a whole lot more.
The OS then sends it all back to Microsoft so that it can be used for personalisation and targeted ads. This isn't entirely unusual: recent versions of Windows, unless you explicitly say otherwise, have reported some kind of data back to Microsoft. Windows 10 definitely goes one step (well, a few steps) further though, primarily thanks to Cortana (which ideally needs to be personalised/optimised based on your voice inputs, calendar, contacts, etc.) and other 'cloudy' features that somewhat necessitate the collection and squirting of personal data back to Microsoft.
That isn't to say you should be happy about this state of affairs, however. If you'd like to retain most of your privacy and keep your personal data on your PC, Windows 10 can be configured in that way. Just be warned that there are quite a few toggles that need to be turned off, and you'll lose some functionality as well (Cortana won't work, for example). How to make Windows 10 respect your privacy By far the easiest way to disable Windows 10's various data logging, personalisation, and telemetry functions is to turn them off during the upgrade/installation process. (If you've already installed Windows 10, skip ahead to the next section.) On the installation screen where it wants you to press 'Use Express settings,' instead click the small 'Customise settings' button.
The first customisation page has settings for personalisation, targeted advertising, and location tracking. If you're trying to maximise your privacy, go ahead and disable everything on this first page. Jonathan Porta The second page has a somewhat useful option at the top, but the others—predictive Web browsing, connecting to open Wi-Fi hot spots, and —can be turned off. Additionally, during the setup of Windows 10, another way of sharing less data with Microsoft is to create a local user account rather than log in with a Microsoft account.
When prompted for your Microsoft account credentials, instead click 'Create a new account' and then 'Sign in without a Microsoft account' on the following page. It goes without saying, but this will prevent any of your settings/data from automatically propagating to any other Windows devices that you own. Now go ahead and complete the installation; the next steps need to be done from within Windows 10. / The Privacy applet in Windows 10. You can probably turn all these off, too. Head to the new Settings app and click the Privacy button.
You can toggle all of these settings to 'Off,' though you may choose to keep SmartScreen Filter enabled. Most of these may already be disabled if you turned everything off during installation. At the bottom of the Privacy applet, click Feedback. From here, you can set the Feedback frequency to 'never,' which may prevent Windows 10 from reporting some data back to Microsoft. Note, however, that 'Feedback options' cannot currently be disabled; it can only be set to 'basic.'
More on this later. / How to disable Cortana in Windows 10 Now it's time to disable Cortana.
Hit the Start button. Type a few letters and the Start screen will be replaced by a grey search window. Click the cog icon to reveal Cortana's settings pane (pictured right) and then triumphantly slay her by flipping the toggle to 'Off.' If you'd rather keep Cortana turned on but with some of her other abilities curtailed, they can be configured here as well. That should be about it: you are now reporting very little data back to Microsoft.
The big question, of course, is whether the potential gain in privacy is outweighed by the loss in functionality. Disabling personalisation definitely makes sense from a privacy perspective, but it could significantly dent voice recognition accuracy and the usefulness of certain OS features like Cortana. On the other hand, there aren't many good reasons for keeping your advertising tracker ID turned on. Our will give you a better idea of which features are worth keeping. Oh, but there's more. After publishing this story, and with the helping hand of some of the Ars readership (thanks for the e-mails and comments!), we investigated things a little further. Even though the first portion of this guide will mostly stop Windows 10 from sending personal data back to Microsoft, there are still a few other mechanisms and services that continue to report back unless you dig into the registry and group policy editor.
/ Sorry, non-Enterprise users. The most troublesome issue seems to be the 'Feedback options' drop-down, which cannot be fully disabled.
You can set it to 'Basic Health and Performance,' which is probably anonymised enough that you don't need to worry, but turning it off completely is difficult. On Enterprise and Server versions of Windows 10, open up the group policy editor ( gpedit.msc) and navigate to Computer Configuration Administrative Templates Windows Components Data Collection.
Enable the policy, then set the value to '0 - Off.' You will note that Windows 10 Home and Professional users cannot turn telemetry off entirely; they can only set it to 'Basic.'
Another feature that you might want to disable is Windows 10's BitTorrent-like update sharing: by default, your Windows 10 PC will upload Windows update files to other PCs on the Internet, peer-to-peer style. Open the Settings app and navigate to Update & Security Windows Update Advanced Options Choose how updates are delivered.
From here, you can disable this feature fully, or restrict it to just other PCs on the LAN. Unlike Windows 8 Home, Windows 10 Home comes with full-disk BitLocker encryption (hooray!). Oddly, though, you must use a Microsoft account if you want to enable BitLocker in Windows 10 Home, and your recovery key (which will decrypt your whole drive) is uploaded to Microsoft's servers. Windows 10 Pro doesn't have this restriction: you can use BitLocker with a local account and not upload your key to the cloud.
Finally, it's worth pointing out that these are just the visible config flags; without some packet-level analysis, it's hard to say exactly what data is being sent back to Microsoft, and by which service. As, even after they disabled Cortana and turned off a bunch of privacy-related settings, the search box still seemed to be sending keystroke data back to Microsoft.
Are you frustrated by getting “no internet” or “limited access” messages on your Windows 10 machine, while you are actually connected to your home/work/public WiFi point? Are you getting ERRNETWORKCHANGED message in Chrome?
Try the following steps to possibly fix your problem. Anyone who knows me, knows that I barely touch Windows OS, unless I have to! So a while ago I had to do some.NET work for a customer in VisualStudioSo I grabbed Windows 10 Education using my university credentials (lucky me!) and Installed it on my old laptop. Everything was fine for about one or two hours after installationbut as soon as Windows updated itself to build version 1511suddenly my WiFi connection was not working anymore by not working I mean it was obviously connected to the WiFi point, but its icon had this weird warning icon and it popped up the message “Connected, No Internet”. And the Chrome browser also did not load any webpage, displaying ERRNETWORKCHANGED message.
My laptop WiFi module is a relatively old one, Intel WiFi Link 5300, I am pretty sure before update to build 1511 it was working fine I traced down the problem to the file vwifibus.sys in the windows system32 drivers folder. But anywaysenough with story timelets get to the point. FIX – Step 1 Open up your Device Manager. Then browse to the Network Adapters node and expand it. Change the options to the recommended ones below Here we will do the workwe have to change some of the default options in this page.
I configured my WiFi module with following options. You have to try the same:. 802.11.n Channel Width for band 2.4. Auto. 802.11.n Channel Width for band 5.2. Auto. 802.11.n Mode.
No Web No Win10 No Massacre
Disabled. Fat Channel Intolerant.
Enabled. Preferred Band. Set this to 2.4 GHzunless you are sure that your WiFi us 5.2 GHz!. Roaming Aggressiveness. Medium-High. Transmit Power.
Highest. Wireless Mode.
802.11.a/g Hit OK and I am quite sure you will get access to internet right away! If not, restart your computer and see if it is working or not. FIX – Step 2 If the step 1 did not fix your problem. It might be that your TCP/IP stack has got corrupted. To reset it, open a command prompt with administration access, and type the following commands. Reset WINSOCK entries to installation defaults: netsh winsock reset catalog.
No Web No Win10 No Master
Reset IPv4 TCP/IP stack to installation defaults. Netsh int ipv4 reset c: reset-4.log. Reset IPv6 TCP/IP stack to installation defaults. Netsh int ipv6 reset c: reset-6.log Restart your computer and hope for the best! FIX – Step 3 If the step 2 did not help as well, then something is terribly wrongopen the command prompt with admin access again and type in this command: sfc /scannow It will check for integrity of the Windows files and will fix the problems (hopefully).
FIX – Step 4 If even step 3 did not fix your problem, screw this, install a GNU/Linux operating system and enjoy!
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