[Symbiote]

The standard Windows first-run setup prompts with dark patterns to show advertising and send private data like keystrokes and microphone audio to Microsoft. It very strongly pushes the user to use a Microsoft account to sign in to their own computer.

(This is my experience in the EU, so presumably the relatively polite version.)

It seems reasonable to call this malware. It's what software like browser toolbars did 20 years ago, and they were widely criticised for it.