Fixing Windows 10

Windows 10 can sends everything you enter to Microsoft, (Google just tracks your web stuff), stopping it takes a while, but shows how much gets sent ,which will use up your bandwidth, slowing your Internet connection for everything else. Most of what you need to do is listed here:

1) Setting Up

When you first get your new Windows 10 PC out of the box, DO NOT just say OK to Express set-up or use a Microsoft Account.

1. Select "Customise settings" button, on the fist page, except for SmartScreen at the top, you can turn all the rest of these off , and think carefully what you want “on” on the second page.
2. When asked for your Microsoft account login, click "Create a new account" and then "Sign in without a Microsoft account" on the next page. Then your PC doesn’t need to verify you details with Microsoft ever time it starts.
3. Once started, click Settings and click the Privacy button. If you are reading this on a PC running Windows 10, then you can make the changes in a) now.
4. At the bottom of the Privacy applet, click Feedback. Set the Feedback frequency to "never," which should stop Windows 10 from reporting some data back to Microsoft. With Windows 10 Home "Feedback options" only be set to "basic" but there is a way around that, see below.

2) Cortana

1. Press the Start button. Type a few letters and the Start screen will be replaced by a grey search window. Click the cog icon to show Cortana's settings and then set the toggle to "Off".
2. Remove the Cortana Search box at the bottom of the screen, right click on the task bar and untick the option

3) Turn off all the tiles which are downloading news / weather / etc – right click and remove

4) Update Sharing

By default, your Windows 10 PC will upload Windows update files to other PCs on the Internet

Open the Settings app select Update & Security > Windows Update > Advanced Options > Choose how updates are delivered. You can disable this fully, or restrict it to just other PCs on the LAN.

5) "Feedback options"

If you have Windows 10 home then the "Feedback options" can be disabled in the Registry details as follows:

Use Registry Editor to set the telemetry level

Use RegEdit to manually set the registry level. If a management policy already exists, such as Group Policy or MDM, it should be set there instead.

1. Open Registry Editor, and go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\DataCollection
2. If there isn’t an AllowTelemetry entry, right-click DataCollection, click New, and then click DWORD (32-bit) Value
3. Type AllowTelemetry, and then press ENTER
4. Double-click AllowTelemetry, set the value to 0 for None, and then click OK
5. Option - Click File > Export, and then save the file as a .reg file, such as C:\AllowTelemetry.reg. You can run this file from a script on each device in your organization

6) OneDrive

If you don’t use OneDrive then get rid of it

1. Right click on the task bar, select Task Manager
2. Click on Start-up Tab, look for OneDrive – note impact on start-up is “High” right click & disable
3. Right click, show file location, work up file tree until you see OneDrive rename OneDriveX
4. Restart PC, one restarted Right click on the task bar, select Task Manager
5. Right click, show file location, work up file tree until you see OneDriveX Delete

7) Others

Don’t install the Dropbox app in the system tray – it is syncing all the time.

Obviously we at CTi Communications Ltd, can help with all or any part of providing you with IT support.

If you want some help with Windows 11, this artical in The Register has some excelent advice.