On Monday, 21 December 2020 at 17:41:31 UTC, Bert Coules wrote:
"jon" wrote:

Block updates.

Exactly what I've now done; thanks for the suggestion. I'm still puzzled as
to why this started happening so recently, though - unless, as Cursitor Doom
suggests, it's actually nothing to with Windows at all.

I would be very unwilling to block updates these days. Delay or defer, maybe. Even then, I'd like to know what they are before making up my mind.