... and just letting Bill Gates take all the sturm und drang out of it? In the end, won't the results be about the same either way?

Let Bill have the honors. You'll at least be up sooner.

although, I'm not yet even certain that's an option--could the recovery version of windows be tampered with?

And, if they're selling machines with bootlegged Windows (and I don't know that to be the case), will a Recovery even result in a working machine?

... if you're my age, you'd know beating Gates out of a license fee is nowhere as much fun as it was.

to let it do it's updates thing, which it seemed to do just fine. Presumably whatever it is running looks legit enough for it to get updated.

Or is that a faulty assumption?

only a small sticker on the underside of the laptop, barcode with number, no logo, no words, no hologram.

Settings
Update & Security
Activation


And see what it says about your windows installation.

Assuming that you change things like default passwords, ensure that the built-in protections are enabled, etc.

Of course, that doesn't apply if the copy of Windows being used for the install isn't legit and is corrupted or infected with malware, etc. Which, in this case, sounds like a possibility.

Unless there was software added after the installation, a recovery install would likely just produce what you're already seeing. It usually writes a factory image to the hard drive from the recovery partition.

There are tens of thousands (or more) of settings in Windows. Going through them one-by-one would be a waste of time. Find some good guides online for how Windows 10 security works and start there.

Example, which also includes network security suggestions: https://www.tomshardware.com/news/security-mistakes-to-avoid

Another (video): https://www.pcworld.com/article/3602672/what-you-need-to-know-about-windows-security-in-windows-10.html

One that's more in-depth, though it's a bit more targeted to business customers: https://www.zdnet.com/article/the-windows-10-security-guide-how-to-safeguard-your-business/

Lots of others out there.

I used to do it regularly on my WinXP boxes, back in the day. There was a site (black ice something?) that described each setting, in detail. That's the level of control I like having on my computers.

When I was looking at some of the obvious settings, like in Users and Groups, I noticed that "User" had admin privileges, and that got me wondering what the default settings were--I haven't yet looked any of this up. Also, some misc folders/settings were in Chinese characters, which was what initially alerted me. May be completely innocuous.

Is it even possible anymore to have a completely functional machine (and software) that doesn't need to phone home frequently, or go online to retrieve some essential component? ::sigh:: I'm not a fan of this cloud-computing model that seems to have infiltrated everywhere.

Do you have the activation code, like on a sticker? Conversely if it's a digital cert you should be able to associate the activation with your Microsoft account (which even if you don't want, is a good idea with W10) and activate that way after a fresh install.

The only trick, as I'm sure you're handy enough to know, is to make sure you can get the driver files for everything. Chipset, wifi, video, sound, camera, touchpad, etc. I'd grab all those first and put on thumb drive.

Then just D/L windows installer to a(nother) thumb drive and scorch the earth (format) and install a bone-stock W10.

Sure I'm not telling you stuff you don't know, but ... I'd never use the Windows that came on my lappie.