Although this month's Patch Tuesday was delayed, Microsoft released a few updates this week, targeting Office 2013 and 2016 with a total of 17 patches.
But more interestingly, this week, the company also released two updates that it has a habit of repeatedly promoting. Yes, you guessed it, the two updates add telemetry data collection capabilities to Windows 7 and Windows 8.1.
Let's look at the Office patches first.
Microsoft company released 12 updates.
In addition to these Office updates, Microsoft has re-released KB2952664 and KB2976978 for Windows 7 and 8.1.
As InfoWorld's Woody Leonhard reports, these updates first appeared at a time when everyone was trying to block the additional Get Windows 10 (GWX) app, although Microsoft says that these updates are not related to that app in any way.
The official KB pages indeed show that both updates were re-released on March 7, while the descriptions state that they are only being released for users who are part of the Windows Consumer Experience Improvement Program.
"This update runs diagnostics (tests) on Windows systems participating in the Windows Customer Experience Improvement Program. The diagnostics assess the compatibility status of the Windows ecosystem to help Microsoft ensure device implementation and compatibility for all Windows updates. There is no GWX or firmware upgrade capability in this update," the description states.
Regardless of what Microsoft says, if you are one of those who have decided not to upgrade your systems to avoid the company's collection of telemetry data, it would be best to avoid these specific updates.
