Re: I am certain Microsoft have a reasonable understanding of how you feel
Oh, they're working quite hard to make sure Win 7 and 8.1 have full telemetry backported, but we still do have a choice. The security only updates that are issued each month don't have the telemetry, while the Security Quality Rollups do. I presume the only reason they still do this is that they are obliged to by past commitments, so these should remain viable for the full six years of life left in 8.1 and the full three left in 7.
If not, you can always "sc delete diagtrack" at the command line and remove the telemetry service from 7 and 8.1. It's just tacked on by an update, not built in, and removing it reportedly causes no problems at all (for the user). I don't know, as I've been using the security-only updates ever since the rollups got the spyware.
Interestingly, MS keeps trying to push the discrete spyware updates out to me also. I've been screening updates one by one since there have been Windows updates, and I'm sure not going to stop now,
Biting the hand that feeds IT
