New Microsoft Spyware On Windows 7 and 8? - Comments Page 1

Thanks, Bob! I'd disabled the Customer Experience when I started using Windows 7 and had no idea an update re-enabled it.

Hi Bob,

We've been using VLC for many years and cannot understand why anyone would use anything else.

Great to see you agree ;)

I now have evidence that I'm not being daft when 'Aunty' from USA wants me to tell her why Windows Media Player isn't doing what she wants it to, and I say use VLC.

If Bob says VLC is OK she may believe it's not one of 'those' programs that may bring about the downfall of the USA.

Jon

P.S. Did I mention it's FREE!

I agree with you Bob. Most of the time, you also have a chance to not send the information that was gathered. Most of the time, I send. If I happened to have had something with patient info included, I don't send. That's probably some kind of HIPAA violation. I haven't taken the plunge to Win 10 yet. Does it provide the option to send or not send the gathered diagnostic information at the time of the event?

Also, as a VLC fan, I got a chuckle out of your solution to fix Win Media Player:-)

Thanks Bob your the greatest

Thanks for answering my question!

Though Microsoft's intent may not be nefarious as you say, eliminating the user's choice to easily opt out of CEIP is simply unethical. But other companies already do it! Doesn't make it any more ethical!

Cheers

Thanks Bob.
For XP users like me, the link below shows you how to turn off Windows Media Player's CEIP. Following your warning, I discovered my own Windows Player was automatically switched on...ouch!!

http://www.askvg.com/how-to-disable-customer-experience-improvement-program-in-windows-media-player/

I've tried every trick in the book but no matter I can't get rid of the "script error".
Please help, lest I go mad.

Just another reason I am glad I switched to Ubuntu.

Another example of Big Broth.... er, I mean, Microsoft knows best. Whether the information sent in has ever been abused, or not, is irrelevant. I've never been a fan of being automatically opted in, for some action. Why can't Microsoft simply allow the user to choose to send information, when a crash occurs? A popup with a message stating that a crash has occurred in 'whatever app', and asking if the user would like to help prevent future problems by providing crash information, with yes and no buttons is the logical solution. With such a large number of users, enough information should be provided by those, who choose to send info, to fix the problem. Why force users to send information, even if they'd prefer not to?

Bob

Been using the excellent VLC media player for more years than I can recall.

As for CIEP I find it a useful but not often used tool and I'm indifferent to Microsoft and their clandestine partners knowing how many times I go to the bathroom or have a cup of coffee :)

I couldn't find the link to turn off CEIP in Office 365. ???

Hi Bob,

A German developer, Jonas Zimmerman has developed a free anti-CEIP program for Windows 10 called Donot spy10. The catch is the program comes bundled with crapware OpenCandy.

"The data that CEIP transmits to Microsoft may include playlists of songs, URLs browsed, even snapshots of RAM memory contents that may incidentally include parts of a document you were reading or editing. There's nothing nefarious about this."
I respectfully disagree.

Good article as they usually are. I have Win 7 Pro OEM. I am sure I have not disabled this feature. But I do wish it worked! Because every time I clear this error and Microsoft updates and reboots my PC overnight I get this error once again. So they must not pay attention and fix the updating issues! Error msg= "There was a problem that caused part of Windows live id sign-in Assistant to be disabled. and so on, ending with please go to: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?Linkid=144689
Go to that link and you can read ALL KINDS OF GUESSES ON HOW TO RESOLVE! Not a very straight forward solution form ole MS!

Thanks for another great article, Bob. I've just turned CEIP "ON" for my Win 7 PC. :o)
As someone who helped the end-user for many years, I know how important it is to have as much information as possible about what was going on when they ran into trouble, so I know that data collection and/or data dumps are a great tool for diagnostics.

I must be one of those geeks you mentioned in your article, Bob. I've sent along information to Microsoft for years. :-)

I too am a fan of VLC. It's a great video player without the annoyances of Windows Media Player.

I couldn't find the link to turn off CEIP in Office 365. ???

Interesting, but not as interesting as the really interesting picture of the robot with three eyes walking over a page of 0s and 1s. Where do you get your always neat graphics?

If you clear your contents, empty cache, history, cookies, etc., would this still be an issue?