Boy, the good ole days are gone when it comes to Windows. I am posting just to help anybody that doesn’t know. This is like a creepy wire tap. If you are actually using Windows 11, make sure to disable and or reduce telemetry in Windows 11 (Privacy). If that actually helps, I am sure there are more ways they send data back but the video link is a simple how to for the telemetry. Here is more info: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wtg_s1GQiMU
I’d recommend putting more time into switching to Linux instead of pirating Enterprise versions of Windows and then installing and configuring a bunch of third-party software that is supposed to stop Microsoft from doing all the Microsoft things we don’t like. That seems like it’s a lot of work and effort too, plus they are actively hostile towards users instead of just “not ready”.
Windows: constantly having to apply patches and run tools to combat the privacy violations.
Linux: install once, run updates regularly, never have to worry about the constant privacy issues.
I appreciate that those tools exist for de-bloating Windows, but that sounds like a giant pain in the ass.