Windows 10 Diagnostics is a crucial component that allows your Windows device and Microsoft to communicate about the device’s operational status. This system of diagnostics and feedback helps Microsoft understand how Windows is performing, identify issues, and make improvements. It’s also designed to give you, the user, control over the data shared and ensure transparency in the process.
As you use your Windows 10 device daily, diagnostic information is collected in the background. Microsoft emphasizes listening to user feedback and provides multiple avenues for you to send feedback at any time, especially when prompted by Windows about your experience with specific features.
It’s important to note that Microsoft has made efforts to increase transparency by categorizing collected data into Required and Optional. This categorization is reflected in Windows 10 settings, where “Basic” diagnostic data is now termed “Required,” and “Full” diagnostic data is known as “Optional.” This change aims to give users clearer control and understanding of the data they share.
Delving into Windows 10 Diagnostic Data: What and Why
Diagnostic data is used by Microsoft for several key purposes: keeping Windows products secure and up to date, effectively troubleshooting problems, and continuously improving products. Crucially, regardless of whether you choose to send Optional diagnostic data, your Windows 10 device remains secure and functions normally. This data is transmitted to Microsoft and stored using unique identifiers, allowing Microsoft to recognize user patterns and device service issues, always with the goal of enhancing the user experience.
Required Diagnostic Data: The Essentials
Required diagnostic data is the minimum set of information about your device, its configuration, and its operational capabilities. This data focuses on whether your device is functioning correctly. It’s the foundational level of diagnostic information necessary to ensure your device is reliable, secure, and operates as expected. Think of it as the essential health check data for your Windows 10 system.
Optional Diagnostic Data: Enhanced Insights
Optional diagnostic data provides a more detailed picture of your device. It includes all Required diagnostic data, plus additional information about your device’s settings, capabilities, and overall health. Furthermore, Optional data may encompass details about websites you browse, how you use your device (activity or usage patterns), and enhanced error reporting. A key component of optional data is the inclusion of memory state information during system or app crashes. This can sometimes inadvertently include fragments of files you were using when the problem occurred. By choosing to send Optional diagnostic data, you provide Microsoft with richer insights that facilitate quicker identification and resolution of issues, leading to broader product improvements for all Windows users.
While choosing only Required diagnostic data ensures device security and normal operation, the supplementary data from Optional diagnostics significantly aids Microsoft in pinpointing and resolving problems more efficiently and developing improvements that benefit the entire Windows community.
Alt text: Windows 10 Diagnostics & Feedback settings panel, highlighting options for Diagnostic data and Feedback frequency, illustrating user control over data sharing.
It’s also worth noting that even with Optional diagnostic data enabled, not all described data might be collected from every device. Microsoft employs a sampling technique, collecting some Optional data from only a fraction of devices to minimize the overall volume of data gathered. You can ascertain if your device is part of this sample and see exactly what data is being collected by using the Diagnostic Data Viewer. This tool can be downloaded and accessed within Windows 10 and Windows 11 through the Privacy (or Privacy & security in Windows 11) > Diagnostics & feedback settings.
The specific data points within Windows diagnostics are subject to change. This flexibility allows Microsoft to gather the necessary data to address emerging performance issues or support updates for new Windows devices. For detailed and current lists of data types collected under Required and Optional diagnostics, refer to the Windows Required diagnostic events and fields and Windows Optional diagnostic data documentation.
How Windows 10 Utilizes Diagnostic Data for Improvement
Windows 10 diagnostic data plays a vital role in several critical areas, contributing to a better and more reliable user experience.
Keeping Windows 10 Secure and Up-to-Date
Required diagnostic data is instrumental in ensuring Windows 10 devices remain current and secure. Microsoft leverages this data in various ways:
- Basic error information helps determine if update-related issues are affecting your device.
- Device, settings, and capability information, including installed applications and drivers, assesses device readiness and compatibility with upcoming operating system or app releases.
- Update process logging tracks the progress of updates through download, pre-installation, post-installation, reboot, and setup stages.
- Update performance data across all Windows devices evaluates update deployment success and identifies device characteristics (hardware, peripherals, settings, applications) linked to update success or failure.
- Upgrade failure data helps determine whether to re-offer upgrades to devices that previously failed and understand the reasons for failure.
Troubleshooting and Enhancing Reliability with Diagnostic Data
Both Required and Optional diagnostic data are used to troubleshoot issues, ensuring Windows and related products are reliable and secure.
Microsoft uses Required diagnostic data to:
- Understand the vast diversity of hardware, system, and software configurations used by customers.
- Analyze issues based on specific combinations to pinpoint problem origins within limited device sets.
- Determine app or process performance issues, such as crashes or hangs, and when crash-dump files are created (note: crash dumps themselves require Optional diagnostic data permissions for collection).
- Evaluate and resolve problems within the diagnostic data transmission system itself.
By opting to send Optional diagnostic data, you empower Microsoft to more rapidly identify and resolve issues. This is achieved through:
- App activity information, which helps understand user actions leading to app problems, in conjunction with insights into other running apps or processes.
- Device health information, such as battery level or app responsiveness, provides context for application performance data and enables more effective issue correction.
- Enhanced error reporting and crash dumps offer deeper insights into the specific conditions surrounding errors or crashes.
Improving Windows Features and Performance
Required diagnostic data is used to improve Windows, focusing on areas like updates, security, problem-solving, accessibility, reliability, performance, feature enhancements, app and driver compatibility, privacy, and energy efficiency. Optional diagnostic data further enhances these improvements across Windows and related products and services.
Microsoft utilizes Required diagnostic data for product improvement in the following ways:
- Customer device, peripheral, and setting information helps prioritize product improvements based on the potential positive impact on the largest number of Windows users.
- Installed app information guides prioritization of app compatibility testing and feature enhancements for widely used applications.
Optional diagnostic data provides even more valuable insights for improving Windows and related products:
- App activity information refines the prioritization of app compatibility testing and feature improvements for frequently used apps and features.
- Device characteristic, configuration, and app activity impact on device health (e.g., battery life) data is analyzed to optimize Windows device performance.
- Aggregated browsing history in Microsoft browsers is used to refine Bing’s search algorithms for more effective search results.
Tailored Experiences and Personalized Offers
If your device is managed by an organization’s IT department, diagnostic data management may be subject to group policies set by the organization. Enterprises engaging Microsoft for device management benefit from diagnostic and error data for monitoring, managing, and troubleshooting their devices.
The Tailored experiences setting, now being replaced by Personalized offers in newer Windows versions, uses your Windows diagnostic data to provide personalized tips, ads, and recommendations to enhance your Microsoft experience. With Required diagnostic data selected, personalization is based on device information, settings, capabilities, and performance. Choosing Optional data expands personalization to include app and feature usage, and device health. It’s important to note that the content of crash dumps, browsing history, speech, typing, or inking input is not used for personalization when Optional data is selected.
Tailored experiences (Personalized offers) aim to optimize your Windows experience by suggesting customizations, highlighting useful features, offering solutions to problems, and providing recommendations for Microsoft and third-party products, services, apps, and hardware. Examples include tips on maximizing device utility, customization options for lock screens, and suggestions like using OneDrive or purchasing additional hardware when running low on storage space.
Improving Inking and Typing Functionality
Enabling the Improve inking & typing setting allows Microsoft to collect samples of your typed or handwritten content to improve features like handwriting recognition, autocompletion, next word prediction, and spelling correction. This data is aggregated and processed to remove personal identifiers and is not used for Tailored experiences. Performance data, such as manual text corrections and dictionary additions, is also included.
In older Windows versions, this setting may not be available, and data collection for inking and typing improvement was tied to setting Diagnostic data to Full (now Optional).
Microsoft Edge Diagnostic Data
As of March 6, 2024, in the European Economic Area (EEA), Microsoft Edge diagnostic data is collected separately from Windows diagnostic data on Windows 10 (version 22H2 and newer) and Windows 11 (version 23H2 and newer) devices. Microsoft Edge diagnostic data collection is governed by its own settings. For detailed information, see Microsoft Edge, browsing data, and privacy.
Taking Control of Your Windows 10 Diagnostic and Feedback Settings
Windows 10 provides you with significant control over your diagnostic and feedback settings.
Changing Diagnostic Data Settings
During the initial Windows 10 setup, you can choose whether to send Optional diagnostic data. You can modify this setting at any time:
- Windows 10: Go to Start > Settings > Privacy > Diagnostics & feedback.
- Windows 11: Go to Start > Settings > Privacy & security > Diagnostics & feedback.
- Under Diagnostic data, select your preferred option. If settings are unavailable, your device might be managed by an organization, indicated by a message: “Some settings are hidden or managed by your organization.”
Alt text: Diagnostic data setting options within Windows 10 settings, showing “Required diagnostic data” and “Optional diagnostic data” choices for user control.
It’s important to remember that Windows also has other privacy settings, such as Activity history, that control app activity and browsing history data sent to Microsoft.
Adjusting Tailored Experiences (Personalized Offers)
You can also manage the Tailored experiences (Personalized offers) setting:
- Windows 10: Go to Start > Settings > Privacy > Diagnostics & feedback.
- Windows 11: Go to Start > Settings > Privacy & security > Diagnostics & feedback.
- Under Tailored experiences or Personalized offers, choose your preferred setting.
Viewing Your Diagnostic Data
The Diagnostic Data Viewer allows you to see real-time diagnostic data from your device. It does not show historical data and must be running to view data:
Windows 10:
- Go to Start > Settings > Privacy > Diagnostics & feedback.
- Ensure Diagnostic data viewer is On, then select Diagnostic Data Viewer.
Windows 11:
- Go to Start > Settings > Privacy & security > Diagnostics & feedback.
- Ensure View diagnostic data is On, then select Open Diagnostic Data Viewer.
Deleting Your Diagnostic Data
You can delete diagnostic data for your device, but this does not delete data associated with your Microsoft account or stop future data sending. Organizations managing your device may also have copies of diagnostic data.
- Windows 10: Go to Start > Settings > Privacy > Diagnostics & feedback.
- Windows 11: Go to Start > Settings > Privacy & security > Diagnostics & feedback.
- Under Delete diagnostic data, select Delete.
For additional diagnostic data linked to your Microsoft account, visit the Microsoft privacy dashboard.
Controlling Inking and Typing Improvement
To stop Microsoft from using your typing and handwriting data for service improvement:
- Windows 10: Go to Start > Settings > Privacy > Diagnostics & feedback.
- Windows 11: Go to Start > Settings > Privacy & security > Diagnostics & feedback.
- Turn the Improve inking and typing setting Off.
Managing Feedback Frequency
You can adjust how often Windows asks for your feedback:
- Windows 10 & 11: Go to Start > Settings > Privacy (or Privacy & security) > Diagnostics & feedback.
- Under Feedback frequency, select your preferred option.
Sending Feedback at Any Time
To send feedback to Microsoft whenever you want:
- Type Feedback Hub in the search bar.
- Enter keywords describing your issue in the “Give us feedback to make Windows better” box and press Enter.
- Upvote existing feedback if you find your issue, or provide new feedback using the form.
Conclusion
Windows 10 diagnostics is a valuable system designed to improve performance, security, and user experience. Understanding the types of diagnostic data collected and how it’s used empowers you to make informed decisions about your privacy settings. Windows 10 provides robust tools to manage your diagnostic data, tailored experiences, and feedback preferences, ensuring you have control over the balance between data sharing and system improvement. By utilizing these settings, you can customize your Windows 10 experience to best suit your needs and preferences while contributing to the ongoing enhancement of the Windows ecosystem.
