Windows 10 update changed some users’ privacy settings

Windows 10’s November Update changed privacy settings for some users. According to Microsoft, users’ set preferences for, among other things, the advertising ID were inadvertently not remembered.

On November 12, the first major update for Windows 10 appeared. More than a week later, Microsoft took everything that had to do with the update offline. The reason for this was initially unclear, but now the company has announced that the update contained an issue that prevented Windows from remembering the settings for advertising ID, Background apps, SmartScreen Filter and Sync with devices. Microsoft claims that the problem may have occurred in “an extremely small number of people”. However, it is not clear what that claim is based on.

Advertising ID, or Advertising ID, and the SmartScreen Filter, are options in Windows 10’s privacy settings. These features are enabled by default; users can disable it themselves during installation or later. When installing the Windows 10 update “it may happen” that the preferences for the relevant settings have not been remembered. That implies that they have been reset to the default settings and are therefore enabled. A cumulative update to Windows 10 version 1511 was released on Tuesday, which should solve the problem.

Microsoft says it is working on restoring affected users’ settings to their pre-update preferences. This should happen in the coming days. It is not known how Microsoft will adjust the settings for these users. Users can also check and adjust their privacy settings themselves via the Settings menu.

The major Windows 10 update would also have unsolicited programs removed from various users, Security.nl notes. It would mainly concern programs such as CpuID, Cpu-Z and Speccy, but there are also reports of users where the AMD Catalyst Control Center disappeared after installing the November update.