I wonder how hard would it be to just switch back to Windows 7 for these kinds of cases? Obviously the most ideal solution is to use Linux but there's still some edge cases where Windows is needed or is just preferred. If you install Windows 7 in a VM you'll be blown away by having a simple, clean OS that just runs applications and doesn't shove ads or Bing search into the start menu. And obviously it would be vulnerable to software exploits but if the device is mostly kept offline I can't see many issues with that coming up. Something to think about...

I know people who are still on Windows 7, but application support is becoming more difficult, including mainstream web browsers. You can still disable annoyances like in TFA on Windows 10, you just have to dig a bit.

I want to experiment with windows PE for that kind of use there used to be lite windows “distro” bashed on pe I used to love playing with

At a certain point you’ll lose application support, including from the major browsers and other services like Steam