I'm in a rare bizarre situation and this is a desperate attempt to not buy any new hardware.
Basically, I need a minimalist, no BS, no autoupdate, no auto-turn-back-bad-settings-weekly version of windows specifically for the purpose of running windows occasionally and only connecting my phone to it to run this one specific application https://www.samsung.com/uk/apps/samsung-dex/
Scrcpy does not trigger Samsung Dex (or Android Desktop for non-Samsung devices), otherwise I'd just use that on my Garuda MATE Linux installation. I will be tinking with wine later but I doubt it will work.
Any option that involves spending money will probably not be worth it because if I am spending money on this, I'd rather get a portable monitor (they're not that expensive).
Know of any specifically good windows ISO or what the gold standard of keeping a rogue OS like windows in check?
I think you should try to make the Samsung dex thing work on linux live boot environment and if it does go linux don't turn back. If it doesn't try atlas