Blocking M$ Access to Your Data
About time I start a proactive thread and stop so much whining and bellyaching on my part about M$. I am going to take control of my Surface Pro 11 X Elite 5g (from hereon SP11-5g) and pass along things I've found or learned in my wrestling match with Satya and company (M$). I hope others will post their recommendations and experiences in this wrestling match. I will try very hard not to let my contributions just be diatribes about M$.
Liron Segev (thetechieguy.com) has a contentious life with M$ (like me, so guess that's why I like his videos) so this will be my first tip - his recommendations to stop M$ from getting your data. Personal note, I have tried O&O ShutUp and it does work on OA, but haven't gone the second step of directly blocking Microsoft telemetry data yet through your hosts file - still trying to decide if I want to do this for fear of blocking something that is system critical.
I DO NOT AGREE WITH HIS RECOMMENDATION TO CONSIDER LINUX - ONLY FOR THE STRONGEST AND BRAVEST.
Standalone Scanners:
Yes, it is still a major issue if you own a standalone scanner. Your only solution at this point is VueScan - a third party scanner tool from Hamrick Software. To install it on ARM64 you will need to temporarily disable driver signature locking, which will give your IT folks a case of the measles and hives at the same time. But it does work.
Bottom line - without VueScan (and 5g) I would be typing on a MacBook again. In fact, that is still a possibility given my other beefs with M$...