The App Telemetry Data
Windows 10 collects various types of diagnostic data to help Microsoft troubleshoot issues and improve the operating system. As part of this telemetry system, Windows also allows third-party applications from the Microsoft Store to request access to specific diagnostic information about other apps running on your system. This permission is governed by a privacy setting called “Let apps access my diagnostic info.”
When this toggle is enabled, an authorized app can read detailed telemetry about your usage patterns. Specifically, it can see a list of other applications that are currently running, and it can access information about those apps, such as their memory usage, CPU consumption, and general stability metrics. While a dedicated system monitoring tool or a task manager alternative obviously requires this data to function, there is absolutely no reason a standard game, a social media client, or a calculator app needs to know what other software you are running or how much memory they are using. Granting broad access to this diagnostic info allows apps to profile your behavior. To protect your privacy and enforce application isolation, you should disable this global setting.
How to Revoke Diagnostic Info Access
You can instantly stop all Store applications from reading your system telemetry via the Privacy settings.
- Click the Start button and select the Settings gear icon (or press
Win + I). - Click on the Privacy category.
- Look at the left-hand sidebar, scroll down to the “App permissions” section, and click on Diagnostics (or “Diagnostic info” depending on your Windows build).
- In the right-hand pane, locate the master toggle switch situated immediately underneath the text Let apps access my diagnostic info.
- Click the toggle switch to turn it Off.
Once disabled, Windows will block all UWP apps from viewing the execution state or performance metrics of other applications running on your machine.