How to revert changes made to Windows 10 by "Destroy Windows Spying" (DWS_Lite.exe)

Question

I've found a tool that claimed is able to ban Microsoft Windows 10 from keylogging, Anonymous telemetry, and Spying on my personal information. It's called Destroy Windows Spying (DWS_Lite.exe). After running this freeware, I noticed undesired changes to my computer, including:

• Disabled Cortana
• Disabled Windows Defender
• Disabled Windows Web Search
• Disabled Password Reveal Button
• Disabled Location Services

And many others I can't recall. I tried registry tweaks available online to enable Cortana, but it didn't help. I see a gray Cortana switch button, showing the message:

"Cortana is disabled by company policy"

How to fix Cortana? Or if possible, totally revert changes made to my system?

Solution

Destroy Windows Spying Neutralizer (DWS_Neutralizer.cmd)

After thorough research, I've found a list of changes made by DWS:

Delete Keylogger and Telemetry:

• Disables and deletes some of Diagnostics and Windows Media push services.
• Disables Cortana from registry, by Computer Policy.
• Disables Windows Telemetry from registry.
• Disables Diagnostics from registry.
• Disables Inclusion of MRT in Windows Update from registry.

Add spy domains in hosts file, and block in Windows Firewall:

• Blocks Microsoft telemetry URLs from hosts file.
• Blocks Microsoft telemetry IP ranges from firewall.
• Blocks Microsoft telemetry IP ranges from routing table.

Disable Private Settings:

• Disbales Cortana from registry, by User Policy.
• Disables Camera on LockScreen from registry.
• Disables Biometrics from registry.
• Disables Bing Search from registry.
• Disables Web Search from registry.
• Disables Password Reveal Button from registry.
• Disables Sensors from registry.
• Disables Location Services from registry.

Disable Windows Defender:

• Disables Windows Defender from registry.
• Disables Automatic Malware Sample Submission from registry.
• Disables Malware Reporting from registry.
• Disables Smart Screen Filter from registry.

Set Default Windows Photo Viewer:

• Self-descriptive I guess!

Disable Spy Tasks:

• Disables Diagnostics from task scheduler.
• Disables Media Center Discovery from task scheduler.
• Disables Office Telemetry from task scheduler.
• Disables Customer Experince from task scheduler.
• Disables WinSAT Maintenance from task scheduler.

This script reverts all the changes to their default settings.

Note: It doesn't reinstall removed metro apps!

Disclaimer: This method is tested and working. However, there's a chance that I didn't mentioned all the changes, and maybe I missed some registry keys. Please be warned that it reverts affected settings to Out-of-Box state, so if you changed some of those, you may need to re-enable/configure them. !Do it at your ownrisk!

Download as script: DWS_Neutralizer.cmd (Note: Run as admin)

Download as archive: DWS_Neutralizer.zip (Note: Extract, then run as admin)

Based on: DWS (Final) Last Updated: 2015-12-29

Comments

[Wayne Jhukie]

Note that turning on Cortana will resume sending Cortana searches to Microsoft.

[Biswapriyo]

You can get the registry changes made by DWS in this GitHub source code. Link:: DWS/MainDwsForm.cs.

[NetwOrchestration]

@Biswa Thank you for the tip. I just wanted to make something easily applicable by a novice user.

[mattarod]

Bless you, this fixed some problems I was having and I didn't have to reinstall Windows. That'll teach me to run some program some guy made when I'm feeling paranoid about legitimate operating system features.