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As the leaks show, the AV programs are being bypassed and if malware gets a foothold, AV is often worse than nothing. But the idea that Windows is easily remotely hacked is dated. There are still listen ports by default but those are better protected than they used to be. There are some simple steps that can enhance security: remove all crapware, install a more secure browser, remove Flash and all other Adobe products. Also turn off or remove all of the MS networked crapware: news, weather, stock ticker, etc. Those are all completely worthless, just another attack surface, and a waste of bandwidth.

I have not experimented with firewalls for at least 10 years, but I suspect it might help to stop the MS crapware and spyware. The problem however is the arms race between the firewall and other OS components and apps to get low in the network stack. I would recommend turning off networking but that defeats the purpose of having a computer. But NAT routing should provide most people protection from incoming connection attacks and safe browsing will protect them on their outgoing connections provided they can turn off auto-update.