Group Policy Editor to disable as much telemetry as possible

Tomatot · Oct 19, 2022

Hello everyone

I'm currently on a quest to disable as much telemetry as possible.

1) In the past, I was using utilities such as O&O Shutup10++ or W10Privacy. However, I'm not entirely satisfied for them.

These tools are convenient but not open source. I trust them but it's not ideal.
It's really hard to track what they're actually doing.
They're not updated very often, which leads to my following grief.
Lots of settings are outdated, and simply don't work. Since most of the time, it involves regedits, I think it's quite a problem and it can impact stability.

2) The settings app doesn't include all relevant options. It's also a PITA to go through it everytime I do a clean install. Settings are sometimes reset when there are big Windows updates. This solution isn't satisfying at all for me.

3) So I figured it out the best way to deal with it was to use GPE (Group Policy Editor). I've already read many articles, threads, to find most relevant settings. Here is my list: GitHub - Tom4tot/Windows-11-Personal-Setup: All the steps I personally go though when performing a clean install of Windows 11. I'm aiming for as much automation as possible; a clean UI/UX; as much privacy as possible; prioritizing native software or FOSS..

I have a few comments:

First of all, feel free to use it for yourself, that's why I created a repository!
What do you think of my approach? As you can read on my page, it's extremely easy to backup/restore group policies, and it seems to be a clean way to deal with telemetry and Windows Settings in general (that you want to keep permanent).
If you've already done something similar, I'd appreciate if you could point out what policies I could have missed and that are obviously relevant.

Thanks for your time!

Tomatot

pparks1 · Oct 19, 2022

couple of things
#1). Not sure I would encourage ignoring your license key and instead just choosing Windows 11 pro for the install. If you don't have the license, don't use it.
#2). In your software list, you called handbrake, hankbrake.
#3). You should try Visual Studio Code as a text editor. It's amazing.

Tomatot · Oct 19, 2022

pparks1 said:
couple of things
#1). Not sure I would encourage ignoring your license key and instead just choosing Windows 11 pro for the install. If you don't have the license, don't use it.
#2). In your software list, you called handbrake, hankbrake.
#3). You should try Visual Studio Code as a text editor. It's amazing.

Thanks for your feedback!

Regarding #1, it's mostly useful if you have a laptop with a Home OEM key that Windows will use without asking. I guess I should mention to not do that if you don't own a W11 pro key, fair enough.
#2 thanks for the close attention you brought to my page :)
#3 I heard of it but I never tried it, I will give it a try I guess. I'm currently happy with n++, it's really lightweight and easy to use. Also, as you might have noticed, I prefer to use FOSS. What makes VSC amazing to you?

pparks1 · Oct 19, 2022

Visual Studio Code is one of the best pieces of software microsoft has ever put out. While not FOSS, it is a free application.

Visual Studio Code - Code Editing. Redefined

Visual Studio Code is a code editor redefined and optimized for building and debugging modern web and cloud applications. Visual Studio Code is free and available on your favorite platform - Linux, macOS, and Windows.

code.visualstudio.com

What makes it great is that it supports tons of languages and has color markup. it also has a ton of plugins, so you can check in and check out from git right in VSC, in addition you can run and manage docker containers and such from within the app. It has built in terminal support for things like powershell.

This video gives you a quick look at it and the power it has

TairikuOkami · Oct 20, 2022

Tomatot said:
These tools are convenient but not open source. I trust them but it's not ideal.

Majority of settings those tools change are done via normal settings or GPO, but using reg instead of the template, it is easier to apply.

Tomatot said:
It's really hard to track what they're actually doing.

Process Monitor - ussually filtering by RegSetValue will do.

Tomatot said:
Lots of settings are outdated, and simply don't work.

That is because MS changes them to prevent people from tampering, also some require SYSTEM permissions.

Tomatot said:
What do you think of my approach?

I did the same, I copied my settings from dozens of tools and githubs, I like to know, what is each value doing.

Tomatot said:
I'd appreciate if you could point out what policies I could have missed and that are obviously relevant.

You disable widgets, but I hear that it does not actually stop the process? I uninstall them.
You disable smarstcreen, but it also does not stop the process, it can be removed though.

Tomatot said:
I'm currently happy with n++, it's really lightweight and easy to use.

I like Notepad3, it is lighter and simpler, N++ is too overwhelming for me.

Tomatot · Oct 20, 2022

TairikuOkami said:
Majority of settings those tools change are done via normal settings or GPO, but using reg instead of the template, it is easier to apply.

Process Monitor - ussually filtering by RegSetValue will do.

That is because MS changes them to prevent people from tampering, also some require SYSTEM permissions.

I did the same, I copied my settings from dozens of tools and githubs, I like to know, what is each value doing.

You disable widgets, but I hear that it does not actually stop the process? I uninstall them.
You disable smarstcreen, but it also does not stop the process, it can be removed though.

I like Notepad3, it is lighter and simpler, N++ is too overwhelming for me.

Thanks a lot for your answer!

I can't see any sign of widgets in task manager, so I assume it's enough.

Regarding your things, could you share them with me? Or the best lists you found? Thanks in advance!