[German]Many users trust on O&O Shutup to turn off telemetry data collection under Windows 10. I've now received a user report that a disabled telemetry data collection is automatically reactivated under Windows 10 – despite O&O Shutup 10 settings. Other users are confirming this observation.
I have already had the information for a few days from blog reader Andreas E.. He runs a Windows 10 Enterprise 20H2 (build 19042.804) and a Windows 10 Pro 20H2 (build 19042.804). In a first mail Andreas E. writes
I would like to inform you about the following:
For some time now, our computers have been activating
Win 10 Enterprise 20H2, 19042.804 and Win 10 Pro 20H2, 19042.804
the "Telemetry" function is activated again and again against our will, although we disable it via OOSU.
This is beyond belief!
Now I know you can't advise individually, but do you have any advice, or comment, on how we can proceed on the matter?
I don't use O&O Shutup and with Windows 10 Enterprise its possible to use group policies to disable telemetry. So I asked the reader about details. In a second mail, Andreas clarified some of my inquiries:
OOSU stands for O&O Shutup. We currently have the following settings:
Machine 1 Windows 10 Enterprise 20H2 Build 19042.844.
Service local User experience and telemetry in connected mode.
Service name DiagTrack STARTTYP set to "Disabled".
Service local Windows error reporting service
Service name WerSvc STARTTYP set to "Disabled
Under Group Policy Data Collection and Allow Pre-Release Telemetry, set the value to 0-Security (Enterprise only)
Machine 2 Windows 10 Pro 20H2 Build 19042.844
Settings as above.
After a short time / few minutes, OOSU witnesses telemetry as enabled again, on both versions.
After I've published the German edition of this blog post, I got several feedback from other O&O ShutUp 10 users confirming this observation. Within the German O&O forum there is also a discussion about this issue. The feedback from the O&O ShutUp 10 users was, that they could not prevent Windows 10 from reactivating telemetry blocked by the tool.
I was experiencing the same thing, although I am running 1909, not 20H2. It happened when I downloaded the February, 2021 updates. I 'solved' the problem, by using system restore to revert to an earlier system state, but obviously this is not a long term solution.