diff --git a/ee/watchdog/controller_windows.go b/ee/watchdog/controller_windows.go
index f39a9efc1..e6a54de4a 100644
--- a/ee/watchdog/controller_windows.go
+++ b/ee/watchdog/controller_windows.go
@@ -93,6 +93,13 @@ func (wc *WatchdogController) publishLogs(ctx context.Context) {
 		return
 	}
 
+	// don't bother processing further unless watchdog is enabled.
+	// note that this means if you manually install watchdog via CLI, logs
+	// will not be published unless you have the corresponding feature flag enabled
+	if !wc.knapsack.LauncherWatchdogEnabled() {
+		return
+	}
+
 	// note that there is a small window here where there could be pending logs before the watchdog task is removed -
 	// there is no harm in leaving them and we could recover these with the original timestamps if we ever needed.
 	// to avoid endlessly re-processing empty logs while we are disabled, we accept this possibility and exit early here
diff --git a/ee/watchdog/controller_windows_test.go b/ee/watchdog/controller_windows_test.go
index 957f66f7c..619cc3f1a 100644
--- a/ee/watchdog/controller_windows_test.go
+++ b/ee/watchdog/controller_windows_test.go
@@ -23,6 +23,7 @@ func TestInterrupt_Multiple(t *testing.T) {
 	mockKnapsack.On("Slogger").Return(testSlogger)
 	mockKnapsack.On("Identifier").Return("kolide-k2")
 	mockKnapsack.On("KolideServerURL").Return("k2device.kolide.com")
+	mockKnapsack.On("LauncherWatchdogEnabled").Return(false).Maybe()
 
 	controller, _ := NewController(context.TODO(), mockKnapsack, "")