What went around in Silicon Valley at the time was that Digital Research was contacted prior to MS. The owner of DR wouldn't cowtow to the whims of ibm, which included junk intended to contribute to the need for virus control etc in the future. I used both MSDOS and DRDOS; DR was far superior in all respects.

And, of course you already know that the versions of windows include many means of external access, including the intel i series, that allow windows control over all versions from 8 on. That, friends and neighbors, was intentional; the ONLY reasonably secure version was Win2000, which was discontinued when eXended Pay appeared.

And that is why I use linux exclusively, with the exception of a sound lab, since replaced by linux versions for the most part. And when I do use that, I disconnect internet. Everything in house is hard wired. Been around too long to allow unintended access to my stuff. Yeah, yeah, I'm sort of stone age. On the other hand....