"There's no evidence Microsoft has ever downloaded a single file off Windows 10 PCs (except for telemetry, e.g. application minidumps, which doesn't uniquely id

"There's no evidence Microsoft has ever downloaded a single file off Windows 10 PCs (except for telemetry, e.g. application minidumps, which doesn't uniquely identify you, or contains any of your personal documents)." If there was, it would be outright scandalous and probably lead into criminal proceedinds. That does not mean anything less than that is fine. "Disabling telemetry in Windows 10 isn't too difficult either." It is. Yes, you could use some third-party tools that supposedly prevent it and hope that they a) work and b) won't break anything important.