How to remove harvesting from a new Windows 10 instance
Microsoft has a sea of settings that have their best interests at heart. The biggest one being Cortana, and placing ads on the lock screen.
When receiving a new laptop or PC that has Windows 10 installed, there are a number of things that you can do to shut Microsoft out.
Killing Cortana
Cortana / Gear Icon / User Cortana when locked: Off
Cortana / Gear Icon / Let Cortana Pipe up: Off
Cortana / Gear Icon / Everything: Off
Completely disable Cortana via the Registry
Opting out of everything in Settings
Microsoft opts you into everything as default. Opt out as below, but take care that there isn't something here that you actually use. These are just my settings. Camera and mics, still work in Skype or Hangouts, etc.
All Settings / System / Notifications / Cortana: Off
All Settings / System / Offline maps / Map updates: Off
All Settings / Devices / Mouse & Touchpad / Three finger Tap: Nothing
All Settings / Network / Connect to suggested hotspots: Off
All Settings / Network / Paid wifi services: Off
All Settings / Personalisation / ** (see “Delete the ads” below)
All Settings / Privacy / General / turn everything off
All Settings / Privacy / Location / Location for this device: Off
All Settings / Privacy / Location / turn everything off
All Settings / Privacy / Camera / turn everything off
All Settings / Privacy / Microphone / turn everything off
All Settings / Privacy / Notifications/ turn everything off
All Settings / Privacy / Account Info / turn everything off
All Settings / Privacy / Contact / turn everything off
All Settings / Privacy / Calendar / turn everything off
All Settings / Privacy / Call History / turn everything off
All Settings / Privacy / Email / turn everything off
All Settings / Privacy / Messaging / turn everything off
All Settings / Privacy / Feedback / Never
Feedback / Telemetry
Even though you may have said no to feedback above, this setting really won't be honoured in any serious way. Occasionally the telemetry service will spin up and start sending stuff back to Microsoft. To completely disable it:
Open your registry editor.
Make your way to this key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\DataCollection
Create a new 32-bit DWORD value named AllowTelemetry and set it to 0
Close Regedit
Click the start menu and type: Services
Press enter to load your services.
Locate one called: Connected User Experiences and Telemetry service
Right click and select Properties.
Click on Stop.
Change Startup type to: disable.
Close and reboot.
Delete the ads on your lock screen
Future Issues