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.
You can completely get rid of the telemetry and other spyware components of Windows 10 (and possibly 11 as well; never tried that) before installing or deploying Windows to your PC, by customizing the Windows installation image using tools like MSMG ToolKit (https://forums.mydigitallife.net/threads/msmg-toolkit.50572/; forum needs registration) and https://www.ntlite.com/, and to achieve the best result, Windows 10/11 IoT Enterprise LTSC editions are recommended, because generally speaking, these editions are not designed to sniff personal data from general consumers, as compared to Home or Pro editions of Windows 10/11.