Disable Microsoft SpyNet In Windows 7

As we are aware,Microsoft SpyNet is a service connected to Microsoft’s security products Windows Defender and Microsoft Security Essentials. The service collects information from users of the two products and makes the findings available to all other users of Microsoft SpyNet.Personal information might be send (such as form data) and Microsoft stated that they would not use the information to identify the user,but who knows what goes on behind the scene,or even worse what if microsoft is hacked just like google? So obviously,many Windows 7 users might want to change their membership level to avoid that reports are send to Microsoft.Well firstly some might think it invades privacy and secondly who would want to spend some extra kilobytes of bandwidth.

Microsoft has integrated Windows Defender into Windows 7. The program is automatically running after installation of the operating system. Users can configure the option to send data to Microsoft during Windows 7 installation in the “Help protect your computer and improve Windows automatically” screen. The default option is to use recommended settings which will enable Microsoft SpyNet. The other two options provided are to only install important updates or to make the operating system ask later again.

A basic membership will send basic information to Microsoft including malicious software that has been detected, where that software came from and actions that have been applied by the user or by the program automatically.

There are two methods of doing it.

First Method:-Which is the easier one,that can be done directly in Windows Defender.

Type [defender] in the search programs and files box of the start menu which should display the Windows Defender entry. The program can then be started either with the mouse or by pressing the return key on the computer keyboard.

Microsoft SpyNet can then be disabled by going to Tools > Microsoft SpyNet. This opens the following screen:

Disable Microsoft SpyNet In Windows 7

The default setting is “join with a basic membership”. Selecting “I don’t want to join Microsoft SpyNet at this time” instead will disable Microsoft SpyNet on the computer system so that no information are transferred to Microsoft.

Second Method:-For users who have Microsoft Security Essentials installed on the other hand need to disable Microsoft SpyNet in the Windows Registry

Open the Registry
Look out for:- Registry key Hkey_LocaL_Machine\Software\Microsoft\Microsoft Antimalware\SpyNet\.

The Registry parameter SpyNetReporting needs to be set to 0 to disable the reporting to Microsoft.

Hope this helps! :)