MS experimenting with your PC - really? Has anyone heard of this?

Hi, I happened to run one of those so-called privacy programs out of curiosity, and was startled to find this (last item):



Have you ever heard of this? Thanks!

ignatzatsonic said:

Hadn't heard of it, but I'm not in the least bit startled.

Appalled, if it's true. But not surprised.

We are all just riding on a conveyor belt over which we have minimal control. But you knew that.

Actually, it only applies in Pro or higher Insider versions, and can be easily turned off with a regedit.

How to Disable Microsofts Settings Experiments in Windows 10

Thanks, noted from that article:

It’s not present on the stable version of Windows 10, and only exists in the Pro and higher versions. This suggests that Microsoft might be testing it with Insiders for a full release later.

- so whilst that sounds reasonable, we don't yet know..

and of course the easy way to disable it is with that (free) tool.

You can disable this experimenting with a simple (registry) tweak if you like.The easier method is using the Windows 10 privacy tool ShutUp10, which includes a switch to Disable conducting experiments with this machine by Microsoft.

Anyone who has been involved with software or systems development would not be surprised that there is a debugger or similar functionality in the coding which would normally be removed or disabled in the final release version.

This would appear to be the case here, obviously if it were not in a Beta software I would be a little concerned.

In my experience the breakpoints and other debug functions were only removed after final commissioning of the systems involved, but in some systems that variable settings were made available to the UI to allow fine tuning in future this is a system that makes sense for a bespoke system.

The methodology for a rolling development model as used in Windows 10 would be different with it being removed specifically as part of the release process but remaining in the subsequent Beta versions

The key is present in my 'Official' 1709 build.

dalchina said:

The key is present in my 'Official' 1709 build.

No such key found in my Official 1803 Pro version...