Unlike VS where suddenly such code is built it:
https://www.infoq.com/news/2016/06/visual-cpp-telemetry
Isn’t the Windows framework built with VS? at least in part?
If they had made it an option they could have sold it as a feature, look see well help you debug your module loading! But to turn it on by default with no documentation at all seems a questionable move.
Slimy and underhanded, but that’s Microsoft.
From what I’ve read it sounds like a hook for ETW (Windows equivalent of strace) rather than “phone home” module.