The telemetry saga is back with another episode

Jul 23, 2018 05:28 GMT  ·  By

Microsoft just can’t stay out of disputes regarding data collection, as the company has recently started offering a set of updates for Windows 7 and 8.1 automatically to all computers.

Technically, both KB2952664 and KB2976978, for Windows 7 and Windows 8.1, respectively, were previously available for download, but with a big difference: Microsoft listed them as optional updates, which means that those who wanted to deploy them had to do the whole thing manually.

But as it turns out, the two updates are now listed as critical, which means that all devices are getting them via Windows Update for the reason that’s only fueling the criticism around Microsoft’s telemetry services.

Microsoft says the two updates are just “compatibility updates for keeping Windows up-to-date,” explaining in a brief description that their purpose is to help collect some diagnostic data.

“This update performs diagnostics on the Windows systems that participate in the Windows Customer Experience Improvement Program. The diagnostics evaluate the compatibility status of the Windows ecosystem, and help Microsoft to ensure application and device compatibility for all updates to Windows. There is no GWX or upgrade functionality contained in this update,” the company explains.

Telemetry data collection

Oddly enough, it looks like the telemetry services are enabled on all computers, not only on those that are part of Microsoft’s Windows Customer Experience Improvement program, so telemetry data is harvested from all systems running Windows 7 and 8.1.

The process responsible for doing all the dirty work is DoScheduledTelemetryRun, whose main role is, according to the cited source, to collect data from Windows 7 and 8.1 and then send it to Microsoft.

In most of the cases, telemetry data includes app crashes and OS information that can help the software giant improve the Windows experience, with no personal details collected.

We have reached out to Microsoft to ask whether these updates are indeed shipped to all systems or not and to get more details on what information is being collected.