Why would you ever be forced to install any OS?

Regardless, you should still Dual Boot it with W7.
Especially if you use mods, as W10 has hardcoded 4GB system memory limits for DX9 games.

Certain tools that allow a DX9 game to access more RAM than that, don't work on W10.
Most Notably, ENBoost, in Skyrim, which can theoretically use upto 128 GB of System RAM, to supplement the 3.1 GTB VRAM limit Skyrim has.

DX9 games generally run better on W7, than on W10.

In addition though you can configure W10 to restrict it's spyware, and Bloat. it's not easy. and takes extensive knowledge, of where they are, and many require the Group Policy Editor, registry, host file etc. to do what MS tries to block.

I use a tool called <span class="bold">W10Privacy</span> to easilly access these settings.
Oher tools exist, but that's the one I prefer, and it seems to have more options.

Strangly when I looked at the restrictions, Windows impose for non Activation, it blocks access to all the things I remove anyway.
Makes me laugh they think such bloat is essential.

I would recommend you don't sign up for a MS account, they make it appear as a requirement, but it's not.
You can set up a local account, just like W7.

Finally, if you hate the Metro Look, these give plenty of options to make it more like W7
<span class="bold">7+ Taskbar Tweaker - RaMMicHaeL's Blog</span>
<span class="bold">Classic Shell - Start menu and other Windows enhancements</span>

All links are to the original creators website.
It's not an awful OS, once you take control, away from MS (and Siri), it is awful if you don't.

Yet you can't run Win7 on recent hardware. Why not? Why, because MS doesn't want you to, of course!
These look useful indeed, thanks!

I'm getting a new system, and as WinterSnowfall mentioned, Microsoft really hates Windows 7.

I don't generally disagree with you, however that being said I have found fewer problems than expected with Win 10. I also have a win7 and winxp machine, but most modern computers now come with Win10 already installed, so if you don't have a win 7 disc around that might be all you have, and in most occasions this shouldn't make a difference.
Definitely agree that Classic shell is needed. And avoid as much of the metrics recording as possible.
As for recommending software which alters your system at quite a deep level I would be very careful, you could recommend software which does anything from breaking the install to installing a bot net on the machine.

I was intrigued by the issue you brought up, so I did some searching around and the limit you mentions refers to video card RAM. And guess what, somebody from Microsoft, has been hard at work and apparently the Fall Creators update will fix this bug.

Guess who's now playing Kohan II: Kings of War off of a backup CD while the original is kept in archive? Ehm, certainly not me, officer!

It's a strange world we live in today, where a legitimate buyer has to put on an eye patch and get a parrot and learn to bypass DRM protection schemes just because he cares about preserving his purchase in good working order. This is, I believe, the kind of stuff one wants to avoid when joining GOG, but alas, some things can never truly be avoided...

You can choose which OS you get, even with a new system, if you want, apart from an OEM prebuild.
I would never recommend an OEM for gaming, You can get custom builds, where you pick components, and the store builds it, I did this for an high end PC, and that was purely for a 3-year guarantee on a custom overclock.
W8 was the current OS then, I got W7
Even if your system comes with W10, nothing stopping you dual booting it with W7.

That's always a risk, which is why I only recommend software, I actually have used since I got W10.

You are spoecifically meaning W10 Privacy, I think, but it's well checked, hosted on both MajorGeeks, and CNET, amoonst others. but I prefer to link to the original source, for exactly the reasons you state.

It states what every setting does, and each one can be setr by you.
You can set them all manually if you know where to find them,
Plus, have plenty of time to run all over your PC, doing them one by one.

Each settings a user choice, it creates Restore points, before hand, and you can also do that.
Ultimately you must make your own choices, I'm just saying what I use on my own PC.

VRAM is limited to 4GB in DX9 specifically because it's 32-bit, and so is Skyrim, which actually has a hardcoded VRAM limit of 3.1GB. That causes a known CTD if VRAM ever goes over that 3.1 GB limit.

This is a long term limit, that only heavy mod use exposes, and Boris Vorontsov, the ENB Series Developer, came up with a workaround for 64-bit systems with spare system RAM.

This is part of ENBSeries but can be used without the Graphical ENB Presets.
ENB Download
When used separately it is called ENBoost, which is actually an ENB preset, without the Graphical enhancements
Crash Fix ENBoost by Boris Vorontsov

The mod page states this However the issue I speak of appeared in the old version, available at the launch of W10.
I'm not familiar enough with the changes to v6.0, to know if iut's changed that much, but as far as I know the issue with W10 still exists.
CTD and Memory patch ENBoost by Boris Vorontsov
It's requirements state. What I say from here is based on how ENBoost worked at the time of W10 launch, and ENBoost is the only thing I know for certain was affected, but any mod/tool that provided 32-bit games, with access to more than 4GB of System RAM would be affected.

4GB it a 32-bit maximum address limitation, and applies to both VRAM, and RAM.
This is an hardwarte limitation of 32-bit PC's, 64-bitPC's don't have this limit.
ENBoost worked by creating an ENBHoist.exe, to divert excess VRAM usage to the spare, and unused System RAM, a 64-bit machine may have.
Each ENBHost.exe was limited to the 4GB, but they could stack to a theoretical limit of 12GB.

THis system worked fine until a W10 update, when Boris discovered ENBHost had stopped working.
At first, it was only showing up with Nvidia users, and Boris made this post on thew NVidia Forums
Remove 4GB limit of VRAM for dx9 games

Later reports showed that it was also affecting AMD cards, and the W10 update was found to be at fault
Heres a DuckDuckGo search on the Topic.
W10 4GB DX9 limit at DuckDuckGo

TLDR
Basically while the VRAM/RAM limitation is real in 32-bit, ENBoost allowed 64-bit systems to access RAM above that limit, and use it to stop the VRAM exceeding the 3.1 GB CDT of Skyrim.

It's this workaround that was then broken when W!0, hardcoded a 4GB limit on DX9 games.
Whateever was changed, end result was ENBoost didn't work on W10, but W7 was fine.
Boris may have changed how ENBoost works, but as far as I know W10 still has the issue.
I've not modded Skyrim for a while, so I'm not up to speed on the new ENBSeries release.
It's changed enough to be posted as a new mod, so maybe windows has not fixed the issue.

I finally got all the games I ordered in the initial batch.

Kohan 2: Kings of War got sorted and I'm happily playing it without fear of damaging the original disk, although SecuROM was a rather unpleasant surprise.

I tackled Dune 2000 next.

Since I'm running a 64-bit Win7, installing it was a no-no. Well, not in Win7, but it went through like a breeze in a 32-bit Wine prefix. Both the installation and patching went well, I then archived the installed folder off of Linux/Wine (saved and copied the registry keys created during installation as well, just in case) and moved it over to Win7.

As I expected, the game has no problem whatsoever running off of 64-bit Win7 after it's installed (doesn't even need any compatibility settings of any sort!). You may need to tinker a bit in the RESOURCE.CFG file to set the right drive letters and paths, but other than that it's all fun and games.

I'm going to give Emperor: Battle For Dune a try next, let's see how it goes...

Well, that was interesting... turns out the install CD and the 3 play CDs (one for each faction: Atreides, Harkonnen and Ordos) are protected through SafeDisk. Is there no end to this DRM???

Oh well, at least Dune 2000 had no DRM...

Ah yeah, and the default installer and launcher on the retail CDs don't work on 64bit Win7 - you'll have to use this: http://www.moddb.com/games/emperor-battle-for-dune/downloads/emperor-install-fix-10 to get the installer and game running.

The good news is that it just works after following the fix process, no compatibility settings needed at all.

Now there's just the problem of the original disks that I don't want to stress while playing, because of course, you need a faction's CD loaded while playing the campaigns. Let's see if I can sort this damn thing now as well...

Just grab an nocd, then you shouldn't need a cd in at all. However you use cds they will die at some point, or warp at some point. Have images most of my physical games now, and several were dead alread, cracks, scratches, warps etc.

I may do that, but sometimes it's difficult to find nocd patches for the latest patched version of the game.

Anyway, I had a grim realization regarding my copy of Emperor: Battle For Dune when I tried to image the CDs. Turn out the Atreides CD had one nasty scratch that renders it unreadable on small portions... tried my best to force read it, but it's still not working. Oh well, the seller did mention it had some scratching and it was dirt cheap, so it's all part of the risk I guess.

I've learned my lesson though, so I'm going to try to reorder a better quality copy now that I know everything's working out great in terms of running the game on Win7. Might as well purchase the rest of the Kohan series as well while I'm at it.

I've also tried out Atomic Bomberman which, to my surprise, was the smoothest old game install I ever did. I had no complaints from installation to launch, the only thing I needed to do in order to fix its quirky color scheme was to disable desktop composition in the compatibility settings. It also has no DRM. Gotta love it when a Win95 era game gives you no trouble whatsoever in modern times.

... and Z: Steel Soldiers was a bust. It installed fine and all, but it seems I can't get it to run, though I've tried all there is to be tried. Maybe it's a 64-bit issue, I've got no clue... tried to apply the latest patch as well, that didn't do anything for me. Oh well.

i think its great you getting the copies of games you want to have forever, in the state you remember them by. I have my own worn and dusty collection and even though I cant get most to play, keep slogging them with me move after move, wondering when im just going to bin them but then i look on those dented, dusty boxes, sleeves or cds and so many memories come back that i just cant trash them. i even keep my faded note pads with hand drawn maps, more for the nostalgia then for any use i can get from them

but...theres always a but isnt there, i gave up buying hard copies as i just dont have the patience to tweak them to run, sometimes hours of fiddling will ruin whatever fun you might get from the game once its running.

Some small updates:

* Got the second set of 4 Emperor: Battle For Dune CDs, these ones were all readable and I've created backup copies as well, which I will use to play the game of course

* Got a copy of the GOTY edition of Kohan: Immortal Sovereigns, on which I spent a small fortune, but as you'll soon see it was worth it... turns out is does not employ any other form of DRM except the CD key! The CD itself can be imaged if you want to, but there's really no need since the games does not require the CD to be in the drive.

Wow! Can't say I expected this, but I'm really glad this is how it turned out to be.

* Still waiting to receive retail copies of Kohan: Ahriman's Gift and Z (the original this time).