If you have a working install of Windows XP on your machine, even if it is not booted, and you are booted into Linux instead, can anybody think of any possible way Windows could communicate with the mothership, or anything else?
I can’t, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be done.
Only if you ran XP at some point and it:
Highly unlikely regardless of identity of either OS. [in particular, step 2, given the variety found in various distros]
I guarantee you if MS was caught doing something like that, the DoJ would drop the ‘consent decree’ rolled-up newspaper they swatted us with and switch to the legal banhammer instead. Nobody would suggest it, and Legal wouldn’t permit it.