Overview
The Windows 10 Telemetry Group Policy Pack provides a free enterprise-ready set of Group Policy Objects (GPOs) that reduces the amount of telemetry and data sent to Microsoft from a Windows 10 PC. Windows 10 sends a huge amount of telemetry back to Microsoft. For many enterprises this is a serious concern and they may wish to limit or eliminate this as much as possible.
The two main Microsoft articles that describe Windows 10 telemetry are:
- Manage connections from Windows operating system components to Microsoft services
- Configure Windows diagnostic data in your organisation
Details
Note: Group Policies are aimed at corporate and enterprise users. For consumer and individual users it is simpler to use a one-off script to configure Windows 10. A recommended free product for that would be ShutUp10 from O&O Software.
The Windows 10 Group Policy Pack includes:
- Two Computer GPO backups (Basic & Enhanced)
- Two User GPO backups (Basic & Enhanced)
- ADMX template for missing settings
These GPO backups can easily be imported into your existing GPOs or added to a blank GPO for evaluation. The policies have been split into two types:
- Basic – These policies limit outgoing communication to Microsoft. These provide a good starting point as no critical functionality is removed.
- Enhanced – These policies include the Basic policies but add further settings that limit incoming communications as well. These policies will remove certain functionality, such as Azure Device Health, Cortana, location services, etc.
An HTML export of these policies can be viewed here (W are Computer policies, U are User):
- W-Win10-TelemetryBasicLockdown
- U-Win10-TelemetryBasicLockdown
- W-Win10-TelemetryEnhancedLockdown
- U-Win10-TelemetryEnhancedLockdown
Note: These policies are not a catch-all for enterprises. They simply provide a starting point for controlling and testing a PC’s communications to Microsoft. An enterprise will need to balance the Windows 10 features they want to use with the resulting telemetry that will be generated and shared. Most large organisations are using, or at least testing, parts of Office 365 and as such these policies do not restrict those services by design. If an organisation wishes to block OneDrive, Microsoft Accounts or Office 365 network traffic they will need to configure those settings in addition to the template Group Policy Pack.
The ADMX template allows configuration of some settings that are not present in the Microsoft GPO templates.
License
The Windows 10 Telemetry Group Policy pack is provided free of change, for all uses, including commercial.
Current Versions and Downloads
| Version | Date last updated | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| v1.0.0 | 3rd November 2018 | Notable changes this version:
|
| Software | Download |
|---|---|
Windows 10 Telemetry Group Policy binaries. Include:
|  |
| Archived versions. Older versions of this download are here. |  |
| Source Code. The base ADMX templates are available on GitHub. |  |
Installation
TBC.
