[hdjjhhvvhga]

I'm not talking about being able to sniff packets but being able to to (1) understand what they are used for, (2) block them all on the same machine reliably, that is, including all communication to/from MS servers. In other words, being able to control the system I own or not.

[md8z]

Well there are a number of ways to set up a firewall, I think you can install from a number of them, and it's also trivial to use a raspberry pi for that. Can you mention which packets you're having trouble understanding? I may not be able to answer, but someone skilled with Windows probably could.