What exactly does KB2952664 do?

Anonymous
2014-04-27T00:12:24+00:00

KB2952664 was published on April 22, 2014 and appears in my Windows Update List (I am running Windows 7 Pro - 64 bit).

The description of this update is vague:  "This update helps Microsoft make improvements to the current operating system in order to ease the upgrade experience to the latest version of Windows."

Anyone have more information on what this update actually does? If its sole purpose is to ease the "upgrade" from Windows 7 to Windows 8 (or 8.1 or 8.1 update), then I'll just permanently hide KB2952664 (I have no desire or intention to "upgrade" my Windows 7 system to any flavor of Windows 8).

If its purpose is to ease what would be a true Windows 7 upgrade to a yet-to-be-announced Windows 7 SP2, then I'll keep it (but still would like to have more information about what KB2952664 actually does before installing).

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Windows update

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  1. Anonymous
    2015-07-13T19:06:04+00:00

    I will continue to install patches when I see them in Windows Update.  I see no reason to ignore a patch, unless I have read that the patch introduces problems.  I am not at my computer at 3AM, so I cannot easily start a Wireshark trace to see what is being sent to MS via the new task that runs then.  And I assume that the packets would be encrypted, so a trace would be useless, except to get the IP address of the destination IP server.

    My Task Scheduler window says that the MS Compatibility Appraiser task will next run at 4:16:17 AM tomorrow morning.  I assume that the run time is variable across the various Windows machines so that the destination server is not flooded with data at 3AM every morning.

    --Barry Finkel

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  2. Anonymous
    2015-07-13T14:19:06+00:00

    Perhaps this article will assist in answering your question:

    http://www.infoworld.com/article/2911609/operating-systems/kb-2952664-compatibility-update-for-win7-triggers-unexpected-daily-telemetry-run-may-be-snooping.html

    Thank you very much for that. I guess now we know why Microsoft isn't answering any questions about it.

    I will continue to allow only important security updates and install any others only if I know exactly what they do and I determine that I actually need them.

    Caveat emptor.

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  4. Anonymous
    2015-07-13T05:49:32+00:00

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  5. Anonymous
    2015-07-13T05:09:56+00:00

    I have deactivated Microsoft Update on my machines.

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