Removing Windows 7 Telemetry

[Monroe]

Having finally got Windows 7 to my liking, I decided to look into any telemetry that the OS has installed. From what I read it's not as bad as Windows 10 and 11. I found this article discussing '11 Free Tools' to use.

11 Free Tools To Disable and Stop Windows from Spying and Tracking You

https://www.geckoandfly.com/25083/free-tools-disable-stop-windows-spying-tracking-you/

Number 2 on the list is a tool called Blackbird ... Blackbird v6 (64bit). It works on Windows 7 as well as higher, they do also list Vista. Nice write-up about it here and other places. It will make a backup before removing anything. I also have my own backup on a flash drive before using it.

It seemed to work really good and appears to be safe to use and run. MajorGeeks has it listed to work on Windows 11|10|8|7 but I can't be sure how accurate that information is. Just wondering about any thoughts on Blackbird? It seems to be really safe to use. I used it almost two weeks ago before I posted about it here and have not noticed any problems.

It does remove a lot of items and all the items changed or removed are posted. Information from the link above does not list it working on Windows 11 as MajorGeeks does. I put their information below:

Blocks Telemetry Completely – Block Windows spyware, on both the application and network level, without editing the HOSTS file or firewall settings and remove all Windows telemetry updates. Supports Wireless and Ethernet connections, IPv4/IPv6.

Removes Windows Ads – Remove all Windows built-in advertising and any pre-installed app you want. Stop your PC from downloading and installing sponsored software in the background.

Restores Privacy – Prevent diagnostic data, passwords, contacts, URL, SMS, handwriting, location, and P2P-update sharing. Remove all unique ID tracking tokens. Disable 60+ data collection tasks and consequently speed up your PC.

Portable, Restorable, Flexible – No installation, with a focus on leaving the smallest possible footprint, Blackbird is a single, portable exe with granular switches available. Want to restore everything back? They got you covered. Works on Windows Vista, 7, 8/8.1, 10 (Home/Pro/Ent/Edu)

How Blackbird Works

Without going into too much detail, Blackbird employs some known and less-known techniques to fully disarm Windows while leaving the smallest possible footprint.

For instance, Blackbird does not edit the HOSTS file in any way, nor does it mess with your firewall settings. It does not run in the background, instead relying on persistent routes and resolving hostnames to IP addresses each time Blackbird is applied by the user.

After usage no new files are left behind on your computer and you can safely delete blackbird.exe. Blackbird has succeded when you forget it was ever there. Everything our software does can be restored using the software itself or manually by hand.  

*Dev.notice: Please don't do this manually, it will take forever and is confusing.

There are other tools that claim to block Windows spying but they are cumbersome to use and not as powerful or are limited in scope. So we took Windows apart, piece by piece, analyzed web traffic, system calls, file changes, etc, compared different configurations, designed and built a stand-alone tool and spent hundreds of hours on beta testing so anyone can use it and it gets the job done right.

 What Blackbird Does

    > Disables OneDrive
    > Disables Cortana
    > Disables Bing-integration
    > Disables all AutoLoggers
    > Disables Wi-Fi Sense
    > Disables system-wide telemetry (on all editions of Windows 10 and older)
    > Disables all OS advertising (tips, pop-ups, suggested apps, etc.)
    > Disables all Xbox Live services
    > Disables web content evaluation ("SmartScreen") and prevents URL check-in
    > Disables Windows Media online DRM
    > Disables Windows P2P Update sharing
    > Disables hidden Windows metric startup tasks
    > Disables all diagnostic tracking services
    > Disables all application metric-data collection agents
    > Prevents system read access to already collected diagnostic data
    > Prevents any location/contacts/messages/handwritting/password sharing
    > Prevents cross-device synchronization (ie; Windows Phone auto-syncing with PC
      account data)
    > Removes GWX and Windows 10 upgrade pop-ups
    > Removes Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA)
    > Removes your unique ad-tracking ID token
    > Removes a bunch of Windows Vista, 7, 8, 8.1 telemetry updates (View full list here)
    > Removes Superfish, eDellRoot, HP Touchpoint Analytics, VisualDiscovery and other
      security risks
    > Removes all pre-install Windows 10 Upgrade files/folders on Windows 7, 8, 8.1
    > Blocks 500+ different tracking/telemetry/ad servers (View full list here)
    > Patches various data leaks (IE/Edge, Explorer, Defender, MRT, SMB)
    > Applies various network tweaks (enables RSS,ctcp,tcp-offload,ECN)

INCLUDES:

    > Blackbird App Manager (Windows 10 only) : Block any system application the easy &
      user-friendly way.
    > Blackbird STD : Force removal of stubborn spy tasks.
    > Backup & Restore : Save current system settings to an external file restorable at
      any time.
      
Try Blackbird Windows Privacy and Security ... Blackbird is THE BEST!

*** I also found a 'ready to use' script at this link discussion.

Remove ALL telemetry updates from Windows 7 & 8 and 8.1

https://windowsforum.com/threads/remove-all-telemetry-updates-from-windows-7-8-and-8-1.228360/

 ... there is a list of items removed and at the bottom is a link to get the script ready to download and use. I also ran this script after running Blackbird and so far everything seems to be OK on my computer.

I'm many years late getting involved with Windows 7 but with Windows XP ... which I still like, the web pages are really becoming a problem with daily use. It can be OK with Javascript disabled but I'm sure it will only get worse and not better with XP.

So maybe there are others here that can use these tools and script on Windows 7. I'm sure it's not 100% but it has to be better than what I had before after running Blackbird and the script download.

...

Edited 5 hours ago by Monroe
spell,