Microsoft has published the full range of data that Windows 10 version 1703, the Creators Update, will collect in its default "basic" telemetry setting. The company has also provided details on the kinds of information that can be captured in the optional "full" telemetry setting.

Since it was first released there has been widespread concern about Windows 10's data collection, as the operating system collects various kinds of data and sends it back to Microsoft. The company says it uses this information to determine how well systems are running and get a heads up on problems that users are facing. Telemetry isn't new to Windows, but prior to Windows 10 it was always opt-in, through schemes such as the Customer Experience Improvement Program and Windows Error Reporting. If you didn't want to send anything, you could turn it all off.

In Windows 10, however, that changed: while the Windows 10 Enterprise version, available to software assurance subscribers, enabled customers to disable telemetry, the regular consumer editions (Windows 10 Home and Windows 10 Pro) did not. At release, there were three options (Basic, Enhanced, Full); as of the Creators Update there are only two (Basic and Full). Basic is the default setting, though members of the Windows 10 Insider Program have their systems set to Full.

This mandate, combined with the lack of documentation—Microsoft has never said precisely what the various options mean—has provoked many complaints from privacy-conscious Windows users.

The Creators Update represents Microsoft's first real reaction to the outcry. The operating system itself is more explicit about obtaining consent for privacy settings. The out-of-box experience shown during installation has a new settings screen for privacy options, and existing Windows 10 users will be asked to choose their privacy settings during the process of upgrading to the Creators Update.

Microsoft has also extended the documentation within the product and online to be clearer and more explicit about what each privacy option controls and what the consequences are of turning the options on and off.

But it's publishing the full set of data points that the Basic setting can collect that's the biggest change. Making this available should go some way towards alleviating fears about how invasive the OS is. There isn't a full list of Full telemetry mode data, however; while the company is offering documentation of the kinds of data it can collect, it isn't doing so in the same exhaustive way as it is for the Basic setting. The company is also not offering documentation for older Windows 10 versions nor for the data collection in Windows 7 or Windows 8.1.

Marisa Rogers, the "privacy officer" of the Windows and Devices Group, told us that the telemetry data is genuinely useful to making Windows better. As an example the company offered us, there was a problem with the Windows Alarm app. The Alarm app can have more complicated interactions than one might think, due to its interactions with system sleep (it can wake a machine up if necessary) and the notification framework. Some Windows users reported that their alarms weren't consistently going off. As is often the case with annoying bugs, the problem was intermittent, appearing to occur randomly and hence difficult to reproduce for debugging. With information collected at the Full level from a broad range of affected machines, the company's developers were able to ascertain the precise combination of factors leading to problems, and discovered that alarms became more unreliable as they grew older. The bug was fixed, and a patch was deployed.

Another problem the company described to us was that certain combinations of audio drivers and audio hardware were resulting in audio that was broken or missing certain special effects. The telemetry data enabled the exact pairings of drivers and hardware that had issues to be pinpointed, enabling a fix to be developed.

Microsoft has also been open about how it uses this kind of information to stagger rollouts of major Windows updates. The Creators Update, like the major updates before it, will initially be offered only to configurations that Microsoft has high confidence in; OEM systems that have been explicitly tested are one example. As Microsoft's tracking registers more successful installations—more pieces of third-party software working correctly, more drivers and hardware functioning properly—Windows Update will offer the update to a wider range of PC configurations. After a few weeks, the floodgates will be opened and it will be offered to every system aside from those with known, specific incompatibilities. These phased deployments depend on telemetry data.

These practical experiences have also shown Microsoft that some data isn't useful. Accordingly, Rogers said that in the Creators Update this information is no longer being collected, and the total volume of data has dropped by about half.

The final alteration being made for the Creators Update is an greater control over the voice data that Cortana collects. The online privacy dashboard will soon include a new section to review and delete any voice data that Microsoft holds.

These improvements are unlikely to appease that minority of users that regard the mandatory telemetry as an unacceptable intrusion, but greater clarity about what data gets collected is nonetheless a step forward.