Windows privacy tool O&O ShutUp10 is ready for Windows 10 version 2004
O&O ShutUp10 is a long-standing privacy tool for Microsoft's Windows 10 operating system. The initial version of the program was released in 2015, our first review dates back to 2017 and we have updated it in late 2019. The program has received frequent updates to ensure compatibility with newer versions of Microsoft's operating system.
The latest version, O&O ShutUp10 1.8.1412, is now fully compatible with Windows 10 version 2004 and can also be run on previous versions of the operating system.
Tip: check out our overview of privacy tweak tools for Windows 10.
O&O ShutUp10
You can run the portable program right after you have downloaded it to the Windows 10 system. Note that you may run it with regular or elevated rights; the main difference is that you get more options when you run it in administrator mode.
The interface of the program has not changed all that much since the initial version was released by the company.
O&O ShupUp10 displays a long list of tweaks in the interface. Tweaks are grouped and each tweak is listed with a description, its current state, and a recommendation; this may be confusing at first but the main takeaway from the listing is that green toggles mean enabled and red that it is not set.
The top bar lists several nice to have features that make working with the program more enjoyable. You can use the search to find tweaks of interest, e.g. type Clipboard to list any tweak that deals with the Windows Clipboard in one way or another.
Actions shows options to apply certain recommendation levels directly. You could select "apply only recommended settings" to turn on all recommended tweaks without going through the entire listing. While that speeds up the process, it is advised to enable or disable tweaks manually instead as you retain full control over the process and know exactly which tweaks are active on the system.
Similarly, you may apply recommended and somewhat recommended settings, or reset all settings to their factory defaults.
Click on the name of a setting to display a description right underneath it. The description explains what a particular setting does and potential issues or limitations that you may experience when you enable the option.
The latest versions, O&O Software released two in June 2020 and one in May 2020, come with a large number of new tweaks and options. You can check out the changelog for the entire list, but here is a selection of new settings that you may find useful (many apply to the new Microsoft Edge browser):
- Disable tracking in the web
- Disable search and website suggestions
- Disable sending info about websites visited
- Disable personalizing advertising, search, news and other services
- Disable preload of pages for faster browsing and searching
- Disable suggestions in Start
- Disable suggestions in the timeline
- Disable showing suggested content in the Settings app
- Disable text suggestions when typing on the software keyboard
- Disable application access to various device features, e.g. motion, eye tracking, or device location.
Closing Words
O&O ShutUp10 is a handy tool for Windows 10 users who want to make changes to the system configuration in regards to privacy. The program is updated regularly and the number of tweaks that it includes is impressive. It will take some time to go through all tweaks manually, but it is in my opinion better than relying on presets to change lots of settings at once.
Now You: Do you use privacy tools on your devices?
Thanks for your feedback.
VirusTotal gives one red flag, but ends up marking it clean (?).
CRDF Malicious ADMINUSLabs Clean
https://www.virustotal.com/gui/url/9edbdd40afc6c823aa01394920beee51cab5c665125952465e87eb7544a995c4/detection
Is a non-issue?
TIA.
You got to love Linux soon, until it’s squashed in a mess by System-D.
I used this for a number of years until learning GP Edit and Firewall, installing a system level ad blocker and other ways of corralling software. Without doing a before/after registry comparison, I don’t know of any way to determine what Shut Up does.
Even on Pro Win versions, after just a restart, some settings revert. Shut Up tells you this may happen; tracking down which app or feature is driving the reset is very difficult.
The only complaint with the interface I have is those confusing red and green buttons, simple Yes/No check boxes would be clearer.
For those who want a one click solution that works well overall, Shut Up is a good option. It’s consistent, free, is updated frequently and turns off functions reversibly vs. removing them which can easily lead to an OS reinstall.
W10 with trimmed bloatware is the best way to have problems with future updates/upgrades.
I have tried it, but I don’t regularly implement it when I refresh or do a clean install. I typically just go through and turn off some things that are concerning to me in Windows 10. This is a great tool if you don’t want to try and sift through all the settings and just want something simple to broadly turn off the questionable stuff at once.
ShutUp10 says Windows Tips is disabled, but when I go to the following, it is not?!?!
Registry: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\CloudContent – DisableWindowsSpotlightFeatures
Group Policies: User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Cloud Content > Turn off all Windows spotlight features
So how exactly is it disabled? or is it just false report from ShutUp10 ?
I use ShutUp10 and I have never received a “Tip”. So it seems to work.
Whats wrong with wpd?
I have used this privacy tool from the renowned software firm o&o from there the first release.
I personly think that for the largest amount of Windows 10 users the setting “somewhat recommended” will be enough.
I try to keep up with the latest development from other developers release wise but right now, I think that the privacy settings tweaking wise the O&O ShutUp10 – v.1.8.1412.246 (from ”-20-06-09) is more than ready, for most users!
Removing “Annoying†Windows 10 Features is a DMCA Violation, Microsoft Says..
https://torrentfreak.com/removing-annoying-windows-10-features-is-a-dmca-violation-microsoft-says-200611/
Soooo…they should file a complaint to take down their users?
MS marketing is an egocentric Thing that spits out copious nonsense often abusing the word “experience” and droning endlessly about services. Has anyone at MS passed an English composition class? Have they been introduced to the concepts of plausibility and practicability?
I’m fairly certain no real humans work for ebay; what about MS?
If Microsoft dislikes it that much, it must be really, really good.
Right, I noticed that at BetaNews:
https://betanews.com/2020/06/11/tweaking-windows-10-violating-microsoft-copyright/
All the privacy and performance tweaking is fine, I guess; yet, I’ve always had the gut instinct that those users who have problems upgrading have one too many tweaks. It’s not the way developers okay version upgrade.
Developers use “clean” machines–maybe not even an antivirus program other than Windows Defender. They use the Insider Club to filter out some problems; then, they push out another version to some other chimpanzees who readily partake in the experiment.
Finally, after a few rounds of squeak and squawk, twist and shout, and a lot of disgruntled users, the new upgrade is relatively problem free. One year.
Maybe easier to do it at the DNS level and turn off the special DNS settings when ready to upgrade.
Even the recent news is all fabricated, an experiment, to see what the reaction will be of the hopelessly naive chimpanzees when they are manipulated by alpha chimpanzees. Protests? Masks? Stay inside as ordered?
All all along there is a vaccine that will be announced at the right time, right place.
Social conformity experiments–all the rage back in the 60’s.
“Tweaks are grouped and each tweak is listed with a description, its current state, and a recommendation; this may be confusing at first but the main takeaway from the listing is that green toggles mean enabled and red that it is not set.”
What is “enabled”? Is the telemetry setting in Windows enabled or is the OO policy to block the telemetry setting enabled? That’s what always confuses me with OO.
O&O ShutUp10 is an excellent tool. It is very user friendly, doesn’t hog system resources, is updated regularly, and (to date anyway) has never caused me any problems. Sure, it is probably better to tweak your own system yourself via the group policy editor, settings, et.al. But even then O&O is good to use because it provides an additional check in case you missed something.
Good, but the new Spydish app from the author of Debotnet is even better.
https://github.com/mirinsoft/spydish
You never know what’s baked under the hood. Disabling some settings on the surface just gives you a false sense of privacy.. If anybody is serious about privacy, Linux is the best option out there. Not that it’s the only one though.
For what it’s worth, the apps *I* use the most often (and by a pretty wide margin) are cross-platform and work equally well in both Windows and Linux. However, there are some *really useful* Windows-only apps that don’t have fully adequate native Linux substitutes and that don’t run well, or at all, in Wine. I miss these a *lot* in Linux, but not necessarily to the point of their being a deal-breaker. I value privacy, too, and don’t appreciate the extra vigilance and work it takes to tentatively achieve and maintain it in Windows 10.
PS: I use both WPD and ShutUp10 on my Windows 10 system, and WPD alone on my Windows 7 system. I don’t have to use *anything* on my Linux systems because they don’t try to spy on me by design … yet … knock on wood. ;-)
@Swat
Yeah, provided all of your software is available on Linux.
If you don’t mind putting up with all the totally sucky things about linux and, depending what you use, don’t mind throwing away most of your apps then it’s an option I guess. There are good reasons that linux on the desktop user share is going down every year and search interest has dwindled to a tiny fraction of what it was 15 years ago.
It will never, ever be the year of linux on the desktop, you can simply forget that. Those running the show, which is basically a huge group of large corporations, all have different aims, compete with each other and generally haven’t a clue and/or don’t care. For example why would MS want linux on the desktop to improve? Many of the so called evangelists and those in charge don’t even run linux themselves.
It could have been the dominant desktop os if they’d made good decisions early on but they didn’t.
@Doom:
And yet Microsoft is implementing more and more Linux features into Windows.
I use Windows, Linux and BSD operating systems on a daily basis. Each has their issues and points of excellence. From your comments I understand that you watch through Microsoft’s pink glasses.
Nothing wrong or right with that. I like to use the best tool I can for the job at hand and quite often that is not Windows. For instance, my Linux servers have such a high uptime against so little time spent on maintenance when compared to time being spent on maintaining Windows-based servers, that my boss agrees about not considering Windows for those type of jobs…ever.
For the desktop, well Windows 10 is not the ‘money-shot’ Microsoft thought it would be. Personally, I even liked the Windows 8.x interface, so no problems using Windows 10. But I do see the (problem-) points Windows 10 opponents make.
So, if it wasn’t for backwards compatibility, Microsoft would already jumped ship to using a Linux kernel, with a Windows interface on top of that. As you may or may not know, It is expensive to create and maintain a code base for the Windows operating system itself. And while the Windows operating system still generates a big pile of money, it isn’t as much as it used to be. For several years already. Office licenses and Cloud is where they hedge their bets on. Something that runs about as well on Linux, Mac or Windows operating systems.
Would Microsoft like to see this switch turn back to Windows? Sure, but that won’t be the case any time soon and Microsoft is in it for the money. Moving their software to the cloud will make them work on all operating systems on most devices too.
Your love for Microsoft may blind you, but rest assured that Microsoft is way smarter about making money. And if it was an option right now to drop the Windows operating system and just use a Linux kernel, they would have done it yesterday or the day before that.
@Doom
I’m not sure what you’re saying about market share. The desktop Linux market share has been hovering around 2-3 % for years (with the caveat that all discussions of market share are fraught with problems). I agree that it will never be the “year of the Linux desktop”. But so what? Do I have to wait for other people to use Linux before I do? That seems to be what you’re arguing.
It’s funny but we agree on yet another thing: if someone absolutely requires certain Windows-only applications, he shouldn’t use Linux. But here, again, you and I diverge on what conclusions we draw from this. You use it as the basis of a blanket accusation that Linux is essentially worthless, whereas I use it as a caution for anyone thinking of switching to Linux to consider expectations/requirements carefully. I think my approach is more constructive.
The bottom line is that millions (not thousands, millions) of people are using desktop Linux at work, including a number of employees of a certain Redmond company, so it’s hardly a useless OS. I’ve been on it for 6 years now and have had mostly positive experiences. And yes, I get all my work done.
Windows is for getting the job done, Linux is for fooling around when you have too much time on your hands and to pat yourself on the back how privacy-conscious you are.
oww this comment is bound to spice up some replies! I use both constantly for home leisure, for work..
there is a learning curve using linux, but since I’m a CLI user, desktop really doesn’t mean much,
In any case there is lots of think that I do on linux just because it is easier for me. A script, an automated task, a server running some app..
And this is also the case for windows, mainly gaming (never tried steam on linux, tho they say it works well)
But you can not say that “linux is for fooling around when we have too much time on our hands” – it might be that to you, but do not assume other people’s stance on that!
I like ShutUp10. Nice and easy to use, plus you can export the settings to a cfg file and run the program silently to re-apply the settings. Makes it nice and easy to have a scheduled task on boot-up which re-applies your chosen settings in case MS tries to sneakily back any of them out during updates.
It may not be the best but it is certainly the most readable, I love this app!
O&O ShutUp10 is good but not the best.
The best are these: Blackbird and W10Privacy. More power to the user.
what about mirnisoft solutions? they are open source.
https://github.com/mirinsoft/sharpapp
Sharpapp ui is terrible.
No they are not open source!
But i have to admit, that there new app Spydish is the best on the market. Fortget about Sharpapp and Shutup10 and just try Spdish.
https://www.mirinsoft.com/blog/19-apps/33-check-your-privacy-state-with-spydish
The best tool for disable all the bloatware from W10.