In the event you care about privateness, it’s best to swap off this Home windows 11 setting

Beginning with Windows 10 in 2015, Microsoft adopted a notoriously aggressive coverage with regards to the gathering of diagnostic information for telemetry functions. Early on, the corporate acquired main warmth for this observe, culminating within the implementation of further user-facing choices and much-needed transparency into the combo. Even nonetheless, nevertheless, 2025-era Windows 11 loves its information assortment, with no indicators of relenting anytime quickly.

Sure, telemetry is a helpful vector for figuring out tendencies and for tailoring the software program expertise to the person person, and, sure, Microsoft’s information assortment is anonymized. That being mentioned, it could possibly nonetheless be seen as an intrinsic breach of privateness when the person cannot absolutely decide out of any and all information assortment (or if they don’t seem to be well-informed that information is being collected within the first place).

Basically, my fundamental downside with Microsoft’s telemetry observe stems from the truth that Home windows 11 is not a free service. Reasonably, the working system is a paid providing, with activation keys costing a reasonably penny. Within the web age, we’re used to buying and selling our privateness in alternate totally free companies (assume: Facebook), however, merely put, Microsoft’s flagship PC OS would not fall into this class.

In any case, there are settings out there out of the field to restrict Home windows 11’s diagnostic information assortment to simply the required necessities, in addition to further instruments hidden beneath the floor — you simply must know the place to search for them.

Learn how to disable telemetry on Home windows 11

You may decide out of sending some (however not all) diagnostic information to Microsoft out of the field

To show off the automated sending of optionally available diagnostic PC information to Microsoft, comply with these steps:

1. Launch the Settings utility.
2. Navigate to Privateness & safety > Home windows permissions > Diagnostics & suggestions.
3. Throughout the Ship optionally available diagnostic information part, swap the toggle to the off place.

Sadly, even with this setting toggled off, a separate set of required diagnostic information will continue to be sent to Microsoft for the aim of telemetry assortment. This habits cannot be opted out of, however you do have entry to a few instruments for managing your information inside Privateness & safety > Home windows permissions > Diagnostics & suggestions:

• Activate the Diagnostic Knowledge Viewer: in alternate for taking over a complete of as much as 1GB of space for storing, this function offers entry to the assorted telemetry particulars despatched to Microsoft.
• Delete diagnostic information: a button may be pressed to clear the diagnostic information collected by Microsoft for the PC in query.

In the event you occur to be operating the Professional, Enterprise, or Schooling variants of Home windows 11, there are some further measures at your disposal for disabling telemetry by way of the Group Coverage Editor. To take action, comply with these steps:

1. Launch Run (both by way of Win + R, right-clicking on the Begin Menu, Home windows Search, or the Home windows Instruments folder).
2. Throughout the Run window, sort within the following: gpedit.msc
3. Press the Enter key.
4. The Native Group Coverage Editor will launch on display. From right here, navigate to Pc Configuration > Administrative Templates > Home windows Elements > Knowledge Assortment and Preview Builds.
5. Find and double-click on the Permit Telemetry coverage setting after which toggle it off.

Optionally, it’s also possible to disable the Related Person Experiences and Telemetry service, to cease it from operating within the background at boot. This may be finished on all editions of Home windows 11, together with the Dwelling model. To take action, comply with these steps:

1. Launch Run (both by way of Win + R, right-clicking on the Begin Menu, Home windows Search, or the Home windows Instruments folder).
2. Throughout the Run window, sort within the following: companies.msc
3. Press the Enter key.
4. Companies will launch on display. From right here, find the Related Person Experiences and Telemetry service from the alphabetized record and double-click on the entry.
5. Subsequent, an applet will seem on the display. Underneath the Startup sort drop down menu, choose disabled.
6. Click on on Apply, adopted by OK.

The subsequent time you reboot your PC, the Related Person Experiences and Telemetry service will not instantly run, saving you from but extra diagnostic information harvesting.