Microsoft snooping update, KB3035583 returns to Windows 7 users forcing them to upgrade to Windows 10
Like it or not, Microsoft wants you to upgrade your PC to its latest iteration. In fact, Microsoft set up a ambitious goal of bringing Windows 10 on a total of 1 billion devices by 2017. And in order to achieve this goal, Microsoft is going hook, line and sinker after the Windows 7 and Windows 8 users.
Despite of the fact that many Windows 7 users have preferred to stay with it instead of Windows 10 being available to them for free, Microsoft wants them to upgrade to Windows 10 as soon as possible.
In order to fulfill this goal, Microsoft offered some patches prompting users to upgrade which were stopped when there was criticism for forcing users to forcefully upgrade to Windows 10. Now, it seems Microsoft has recently re-released these to make sure that, even if Windows 7 consumers blocked them, they still show up on their computers.
This was reported by Woody Leonhard of InfoWorld who wrote that Microsoft has re-released total of six patches, and these include not only updates that are supposed to encourage the upgrade to Windows 10 but also bulletins that were previously used to enable data collection on Windows 7.
The upgrade patch as well as the snooping patch has been marked as “important” on Windows 7 PCs, and they are labeled as recommended by Windows Update, so users who might not know what they are all about could easily install them.
Here’s the list:
KB 3035583, re-released for Windows 7 on Oct 5, version 8, this patch contains the Get Windows 10 program GWX. There is no information in the KB article about why the patch has been re-released.
KB 2952664, re-released for Windows 7 on Oct. 6, version 13 is a snooping patch. It send information back to Windows servers back in Redmond. The KB article continues to identify the patch as a “Compatibility update for upgrading Windows 7.” There’s no indication why it was re-released.
KB 2976978, re-released for Windows 8.1 on Oct. 6, version 19. Still labeled a “Compatibility update for Windows 8.1,” it’s a scanning program.
KB 2977759, re-released for Windows 7 on Oct. 6, version 12. Analogous to the KB 2976978 patch for Windows 8.1, this one is also a scanner. The KB article says it’s a compatibility update for Windows 7 RTM.
KB 3083710 is a new update client for Windows 7, with no further details available.
KB 3083711 is also new, and it appears to be an analogous update client change for Windows 8.1.
Once again if you value your privacy and dont want to upgrade to Windows 10 and you don’t want telemetry services enabled on your computer, you should avoid and hide these updates. Needless to say, Microsoft recommends everyone to install them, but it’s up to you to decide whether you need them or not.
Also read: Here is how to stop your Windows 7/8.1 PC from automatically upgrading to Windows 10
There should be some legal action that can be done on behalf of all Windows owners to put an end to Microsoft’s bullying
THE most outrageous and evil thing Microsoft is done yet has been to re-release KB3035583 after I’ve had hundreds of clients pay me to remove it and their other spyware (telemetry) updates. Furthermore, it appears that “check for updates but let me choose whether to download and install them” has somehow been ignored with one of these re-released updates as I’ve found systems set to “Install Updates Automatically” and which the users don’t even know how to access an administrator account.
Two days ago I found KB3035583 installed AGAIN and had to uninstall it AGAIN. I then had update find it again, unchecked it and hid it, and lo and behold, the Windows 10 installer itself was STILL pending as the only available update! Looking at “view others updates”, I found the Windows 10 installer itself included, unchecked and hid it, and that BROKE Microsoft updates! After that, update would immediately fail with an error (I think 0x80240019: “WU_E_EXCLUSIVE_INSTALL_CONFLICT An exclusive update cannot be installed with other updates at the same time.”)
This happened on ALL the systems at one business I support!
Fortunately I had encountered this problem before when I had had to roll back to W8.1 from W10 from a client who was tricked into installing W10, so I knew what to do, namely apply the following .reg hack (it will solve the problem on both W10 and W8).
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WindowsUpdate\OSUpgrade]
“AllowOSUpgrade”=dword:00000000
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WindowsUpdate\OSUpgrade\State]
“OSUpgradeState”=dword:00000001
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate]
“DisableOSUpgrade”=dword:00000001
This reg hack can be applied at any time when removing, unchecking and hiding KB3035583 and the Windows 10 installer update itself. [Note copy the above in a file with .reg type, and execute the reg file by right-clicking and selecting “Merge”.
But the simplest way to use the reg hack is to first uninstall KB3035583, and then apply the above reg hack BEFORE rebooting, namely first use:
wusa /uninstall /kb:3035583 /norestart /quiet
wusa /uninstall /kb:2952664 /norestart /quiet
then apply the reghack, and then reboot. I’ve found that if the reg hack is applied that way, the Windows 10 update installer itself will not come back, though you still have to recheck for updates after the boot, to find KB3035583 AGAIN and the uncheck and hide it.
Note KB2952664 comes back too, and if you want to make sure you’ve removed ALL the telemetry put the following in a .bat file:
@echo on
wusa /uninstall /kb:3035583 /norestart /quiet
wusa /uninstall /kb:3022345 /norestart /quiet
wusa /uninstall /kb:3068708 /norestart /quiet
wusa /uninstall /kb:3075249 /norestart /quiet
wusa /uninstall /kb:3080149 /norestart /quiet
wusa /uninstall /kb:2990214 /norestart /quiet
wusa /uninstall /kb:3012973 /norestart /quiet
wusa /uninstall /kb:2952664 /norestart /quiet
wusa /uninstall /kb:2976978 /norestart /quiet
pause
So, run the above batch file, then do the reg hack, and then reboot, and as I said before, you will then have to have update check for new updates, find KB3035583 and KB2952664 and uncheck and hide them.
At this point in the game, because of what Microsoft is doing to my clients with their outrageous, repeated attempts to force W10 onto my client’s computers and thereby completely wreck their businesses if they succeed, my only choice is to turn updates off altogether with “Never check for updates” and manually check once or twice a year and see if there’s anything worth allowing to install.
Windows 10 was the last straw for us. 4 Decades in the Tech sector. We dumped ALL Microsoft Products on ALL of our Machines. Went to Linux Mint. Smooth sailing ever since. Only regret is that we didn’t do so sooner.