I’ll be honest… the last Windows release that I’ve actually used was Windows XP. I’ve ran Linux and turned my PC into a hackintosh. Moved from hackintosh to actual Macs and so on. I’ve installed Windows 8.1 in a viritual machine to check it out and it was a nightmare. I didn’t even know how to shut it down. I just forced shut down the VM and deleted it.
But recently, I had to install Windows 10 on a friend’s machine. I tried to explain that Windows 10 is a privacy nightmare and there’s better OS choices out there, but he insisted so I didn’t push.
Long story short here’s how to debloat, stop telemetry and automatic updates on Windows 10. There’s a shitload more to do, which I won’t go into becasue I refuse to promote Windows ( even though I respect people’s OS choices as long as they know the risks/benefits ). Just know that at the end of the day there’s no silver bullet when it comes to closed-source, proprietary OS’ ( macOS included ).