Stop Windows from collecting data about you — one checkbox at a time, every setting explained.
Out of the box, Windows shares quite a lot of information with Microsoft and third parties: which apps you use, what you search for, where you are, voice samples of commands, a unique advertising ID to correlate what you do. Most of these settings can be disabled — but they're scattered across the Settings app, Group Policy, and registry keys. Privacy Settings exposes them in one place, with each one explained in plain English.
Controls how much data Windows sends to Microsoft for diagnostics. On non-Enterprise editions the minimum setting is "Required," but you can stop "Optional" and "Enhanced" telemetry, disable Customer Experience Improvement Program, and stop sending handwriting/typing samples.
Disables the advertising ID, Start-menu promoted apps ("Suggested"), Settings-app tips, Lock-screen ads ("Spotlight") and the tailored experiences flag.
Turns off web results in Start menu search, disables Cortana voice activation, and prevents search history from being sent to Bing.
Disables location services system-wide or per-app. Disables the "activity history" that logs what you were recently doing.
Stops Edge from being pre-loaded at login and disables the page-load prediction service that sends URLs to Microsoft.
Disables Widgets, the Windows 11 Start menu's recommended files section, and Recall-style features where available.