Another option. Use a usb drive with Rufus and make a linux os with retaining memory. Physically remove the drives in your pc. Boot into linux and set the the usb linux as primary. Setup linux however you like, then update it. Shut doqn and reboot into bios to to boot from a usb first before the primary pc drive you pulled out. Put your drive back in if you trust linux not to eat your pets, then boot into whatever pops your cork.

Win10 to game and linux to surf. Easy peasy

What exactly has that to do with updates?
Also some games require a newer version.

You lived without proper Dark Mode for so long?

So there is a chance that one of my uncles pc i had happened the same but win 10 in 2016 and an update came.
It only had 4gb ram back those days on that pc and the new update made it super slow..

I was a bit nervous updating to 22H2 too, but in the end it wasn't that scary.

I don't fully trust freeware utilities claiming to magically block all telemetry, especially when such utility comes from unknown developer.

One more thing:
Windows seems to have lost track of the window sizes for various programs. Everything I opened the first time after the update like Task Manager, text editor or media player was just a miniature square and I had to resize it manually again. But after doing it once, it remembers it. Yeah, done. Haven't encountered any issues yet. Wifi works fine.

Never really desired it in Windows to be honest, nor do I plan on starting :P But I use it on some websites.

It mostly does stuff that you could do manually, but instead of having to shuffle through various Windows settings, registry entries, group policies and individual programs like Edge or Office, it has everything in form of switches you can turn on or off. And as I found out after this update, it also remembers the state of things from when you last launched it and offers to revert to exactly that state, solving the issue where some of the privacy/telemetry settings reset after updating Windows.

O&O are far from being unknown.
They also create other system utilities, but are mostly known for ShutUp10, which basically is, what Antispy was for Windows XP and Windows 7.
The tool is well established since 2015 and was updated constantly whenever Microsoft came along with new shenanigans.

The tool doesn't block anything, but it sets the registry variables that control the telemetry behaviour. Windows has thousands of on/off switches, the difficult thing is only to find the right ones.

I was in a similar boat as you. I was using Windows 10 v1709 for the longest time because all my games worked on it and I didn't want to muck with something that's working. But that changed when I finally installed Cyberpunk and all I got was a black screen. So I finally caved in and updated to 22H2. Super stressful during the installation wondering if something was going to break during the install or break compatibility with one of my games. Luckily, it updated fine and now Cyberpunk is finally playable. Everything else seems fine too. Who knows? Maybe I'm being paranoid about updates but my policy has always been, "if it works, don't frak with it."

Same here, but I figured that being 5 years out of date is starting to be a bit too much :P

Similarly, I recently had a problem with Steelrising not launching because of some Direct 12 error. Already refunded, but wonder if the update might have helped :/

Everyone's PC and configuration is different, but from my side, I've not seen any compatibility issues with games following Windows updates that weren't fixed by a new set of nVidia drivers.

Essentially, every game I could get to work on Windows 7x64 worked on all big updates of Windows 10x64, still works on Windows 11.

Having upgraded to a HDR monitor a couple of years ago, I can also say that the AutoHDR feature works a lot better on Windows 11 than on 10 and is an excellent piece of software. The only problem being that it's a DirectX only feature - which is especially annoying for games that were DirectX on console but are Vulkan only on PC - at least give us the option to play using DX if you've coded it for Xbox (I'm looking at you Wolfenstein 2)

Well one of the first things I did when I got my laptop was to update to v1803 to see if it was any better than v1709 and all my Direct X 9 games took a significant drop in FPS. That was enough for me to stay on v1709. That is until Cyberpunk, Death's Stranding, and Deathloop all refused to work. My laptop is 6 years old. I'm thinking it's almost due for a new one to keep up with the ever evolving graphics war. But the question.... Win10 or Win11 for the new computer? Research is required.

Clipboard history was one of the first things I turned off since it was introduced. It has been in place for a while now, the new hotkey just allows faster access.

It's been released with 1809 and OP is upgrading from 1803, so it would be new for him, regardless of the fact that it's been out "for a while". It's also off by default lol.

I can't see why you'd want to turn it off (or rather leave it off) though. If it's the cloud sync fear, then that has an independent setting and you can leave it off to. I also do not use cloud sync, but I do use it locally on each machine and it's a life saver. Not more constant switching and redundant copying. Now it's just a series of pasting, so much easier.

It suggests, that someone can keep their gaming pc offline while still using the internet with linux. Like an internet condom.

Just a thought. More options may be handy, even if not for you at present.