At least in Windows 10 it's optional, you can set your preferences in the settings of the Notifications. The News are only on by default. I see only Notifications when there are Updates or if there is some system issue, nothing else.
Unlike Linux, on Windows you need to be a advanced user for it to offer you real freedom, but it can be done. This is why I always laugh when they say that Linux is more complicated than Windows, which is false, Windows is only somewhat more intuitive to handle if you take it as it is or if you limit yourself to the configuration menu. But when you enter the Services or the console commands, the intuitions are over, there you have to know what you are doing so as not to turn your PC into a paperweight.
@Zerush@const_void As a Windows user from its first version, I was forever frustrated with an operating system that continually required baby sitting, maintenance and a 300 page manual, version after version, just to get some tasks done. Ditched it!
An OS, in my opinion, should operate independently and quietly in the background. You shouldn't know it's there as you focus on YOUR tasks. I now use a NAS for some tasks, a MacBook pro for others, and an android phone. I’m not an apple supporter at all, but find these are better solutions for me to focus on the tasks I want to accomplish without concerning myself with ANY OS. Call it a bad attitude but I no longer want to "work with" any OS for ANY task.
I understand you perfectly and I also think that an OS must work in the background and adapt exactly to what I want to do. This is possible with Windows, but certainly not in its default form. This is what I mean by the need to have more advanced knowledge than with Linux to achieve it. It's not well documented, but Windows itself has some features that allow it to be done, starting with the famous GodMode. In more recent times there are also some OpenSource utilities that take care of this (I would have wanted these in my early days with the first Windows versions, although in 3.1, 95, 98, XP... there weren't that many unwanted intrusions either, just annoying BSODs at times and endless updates of hours sometimes).