I’m going to call you out on that. Microsoft lost my trust to act in good faith with personal data when they started capturing my private OS user input (e.g. the history from Windows R (run) and forced me to link it to my personal identity.
Source? Searching for "windows run dialog telemetry" on google turns up this thread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28598474, which has multiple people saying they can't reproduce it, and the author retracting the post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28608540
It’s also quite easy to observe that when you type anything into the start search interface you are steered or defaulted to searching Microsoft internet services.
1. Okay, but how's that relevant to my original question? Is the history being broken supposed to be smoking gun evidence that windows is sending your "history from Windows R (run)" to microsoft?
2. I just tried and failed[1] to reproduce this on a VM with a fresh install of Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC 2019 with "telemetry disabled". There isn't an universal standard for "telemetry disabled", but at the very least I have the "Allow Telemetry" and various search related group policies activated. I suspect what's happening is that you ran one of those "disable telemetry scripts", and that unintentionally broke it.
[1] https://i.imgur.com/WkbnBlM.png
>It’s also quite easy to observe that when you type anything into the start search interface you are steered or defaulted to searching Microsoft internet services.
but we were talking about the run (windows-R) dialog, not the start menu?
I am 100% certain that’s not the case. — Yes - the point is when setting all the most private privacy options on Windows 10 stops keeping a win+r run history. I didn’t go as far as installing a custom root CA and intercepting binary telemetry data to prove that the data was being sent. I think the fact that the MRU list is disabled strongly suggests that the product team assumed or new that it was collected.
If your experience is based on LTSC Windows/Office you probably have a different experience.
If they are doing a keystroke logger (ie, capturing typed private user data) where are they logging this keystroke log too? Or is the run command history sent up?
Are you talking about folks with Send my activity history to microsoft checked?
I have a script that sets default privacy preferences to my own preference when I start using a machine, you might consider that.
Then you will probably notice that you no longer have a history for Win+R run history.
It’s not unique to Windows to mine user input but it’s more recent than for example the search in iOS and less obvious than Google search.
I believed that the “personal” in Personal Computer meant that it belonged to me, and that used to be true. We are sliding down the slippery slope of allowing the software vendors to own our devices.
I think the staring point with Windows was product activation in XP, and that was quite legitimately intended to stop software licence abuse. I am still comfortable paying for closed source software but Microsoft seem to have given up on that business model.