“I have not researched it, but i wonder if there is a list of all the IP addresses of MS that one could exclude, as with Blocking Unwanted Connections with a Hosts File - MVPS HOSTS file which I have used for years (with some edits). Thank God for such. “
folks have tried that approach, so you could google it and see how it’s going. Some were claiming MS was bypassing the etc/hosts file with hard-coded IPs, so the only means possible to thwart phoning home was to use router features to block the MS IPs.
Well, there is this,Download Destroy Windows 10 Spying - MajorGeeks though i do not try it, and do not want to do all that this does myself: