How can I change all the Windows 10 privacy settings without dozens of clicks?

Question

Windows 10 introduced many new features which leak personal data to Microsoft, you can turn most of them off but it involves a lot of clicking and research because they are not all in one place.

A good list of these settings is at fix10.isleaked.com

I would like some sort of batch file that can change all these settings in one go.

Answer 1

There are some GUI tools out there that promise to change these settings. One I couldn't install because Microsoft Security Essentials claims it is containing a Trojan, the other one changes only a very limited set of settings.

So I wrote my own.

It's a single PowerShell script file that either sets one of three predefined sets of settings or allows the user to specify all the settings to be changed.

So if you are not afraid of the command line, you can try this and see exactly what is going on by looking at the script code.

Set-Privacy.ps1 on GitHub

Answer 2

There's O&O ShutUp10. It ranks really highly on duckduckgo and I've seen it mentioned in a few other places like thewindowsclub.com. Right now, though, there doesn't seem to be a clear frontrunner in this space. So, maybe just try a bunch of the suggestions in the second link?

Answer 3

simple and effective is the W10Privacy program recommeded on Privacytools.io page: https://www.privacytools.io/operating-systems/ or direct here https://www.winprivacy.de/english-home/

W10Privacy - Privacy made ​​easy W10Privacy - for what?! The by default highly questionable set options concerning privacy and data protection in Windows 10 brought me to the idea to develop this program. Microsoft generously enables everybody to change the concerning settings, but hides them in countless menus, where a normal user does not want to search for!

The program should therefore be a help, to display the available settings relatively clearly and to set the desired options if necessary.

The primary focus is on settings for Windows 10 and its apps (for example the new browser "Edge"). The program will be expanded gradually, if possible and available, with the corresponding Windows 8.1 features in the future.

W10Privacy is certainly no programming masterpiece, but meets my envisaged purpose. The software is still in an early development phase: suggestions and requests will be gladly accepted and considered, if necessary, in the further development!