How to Disable Connected User Experiences and Telemetry in Windows (Without Losing Your Mind)
If you’re like me, at some point you get fed up with Windows constantly pinging back to Microsoft about what you’re doing. It’s not even a conspiracy thing — just that sometimes the endless background chatter causes weird performance hiccups, especially on older machines. Disk spins, CPU jumps, all that noise. So, I finally looked into how to turn it off, and honestly, it’s not super straightforward, but doable. Here’s what eventually worked for me, though your mileage might vary a little depending on your Windows version and system setup.
Why bother disabling Telemetry? Isn’t it just for improving Windows?
This service, called Connected User Experiences and Telemetry, runs pretty much invisibly in the background. Its job is to send diagnostic data about your device’s usage and performance back to Microsoft. The idea is to help improve Windows, which makes sense—until you realize how much data gets sent, and how it can cause resource hogging sometimes. On my older ASUS laptop, for example, I noticed the disk activity would spike randomly, and turning this off made a noticeable difference.
Some folks like to disable it for privacy reasons, but honestly, it’s mostly about reducing background noise and resource consumption. If your PC is slow, or if you’re troubleshooting performance issues, it’s worth testing disabling this service to see if it helps. Just keep in mind, disabling it might make troubleshooting harder later because you won’t get diagnostic data sent back.
Getting into the services – how I found and disabled it
This part tripped me up a little at first because Windows hides the service pretty well. You can’t just flip a toggle easily. The right way is to go into the Services app. You can do this quickly by pressing Win + R, typing services.msc, and hitting Enter. That opens a long list of services—some sound familiar, others less so. It took me a minute to find Connected User Experiences and Telemetry, especially on my Win10 machine where it’s buried among a dozen other services.
Be aware that in different versions of Windows, this might be labeled differently—like Diagnostics Tracking Service or dmwappushservice. Usually, though, it’s called “Connected User Experiences and Telemetry.” Search by scrolling, or use your Find feature (Ctrl + F) in the Services window, if it’s available.
Disabling the service — the step-by-step I followed
Once you find it, double-click or right-click > Properties. In the Properties window, look at the Startup type dropdown. It’s often set to Automatic (Delayed Start) or Manual. Change that to Disabled. The moment you do that, click Stop if it’s running already. Yes, you might need to do it a couple of times—sometimes Windows just re-enables it during updates or reboots, which is annoying. Just keep rechecking if it sticks or not.
After you click Apply and OK, restart your PC. When it boots again, double-check in the services list that it’s still disabled. If it is, great. If not, repeat the process. Just be aware that some OEMs lock these settings or might set them to auto-reenable in firmware updates, especially if they’re heavily reliant on telemetry for their support systems.
Potential catch — brace for re-enabling at Windows updates
Here’s where I hit some frustration — updates can sometimes re-enable telemetry or reset the service to its defaults. It’s not guaranteed, but it’s common enough that you might have to redo this every now and then. There are more advanced tricks—like editing group policies (gpedit.msc) or registry hacks (HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Embedded\Telemetry)—but honestly, those are more advanced and can go awry if you’re not careful. If you’re comfortable, they can block more thoroughly, but I stuck with just disabling the service for now.
Just a quick tip: Always back up your system or create a restore point before messing with these settings. If something breaks, it’s easy to revert. To re-enable everything, just set the service back to Automatic and click Start.
Final thoughts—worth the effort?
Honestly, turning this off really seemed to help in my case. No more random disk thrashing, and my system feels a little snappier. Sure, it’s extra work, and I know some folks want to leave telemetry on for Microsoft’s telemetry-driven updates or troubleshooting, but if you’re just trying to batten down the hatches and make Windows behave, this shouldn’t be too bad. Just remember, Windows updates might want to reverse your changes, so check back every once in a while.
If you’re not comfortable digging around services or the registry, at least start by just stopping and disabling it through the Services app. That’s the safest first step. And if you want to be more thorough, research how to tweak group policies or firewall rules to block outgoing telemetry traffic.
Hope this saved someone else from endless hours of troubleshooting — it took me way longer than it should’ve, honestly. Good luck!