TL;DR:
The Windows File Explorer is now dependent on Microsoft Recall being installed on Windows 11 24H2 editions and likely later.
This means that if you wish to use newer versions of the Window file explorer, you have to install recall on your system. Recall is a deeply-rooted, non-negotiable feature on all modern versions of Windows.
Solution
If you wish to strip out recall from your system, you are no longer able to use the built-in graphical file explorer and must use a third-party tool, and if you're not allowed to do that on the machine, then you are forced to have recall running on the system as it doesn't appear on any graphical settings pages.
The other solution is to prepare for transitioning into a free operating system such as GNU/Linux with distributions such as Linux Mint which is designed specifically for that transition. You can also run an older version of Windows and refuse to update.
Errata
Turns out that this issue has been exaggerated and that there are ways to disable co-pilot on Windows machines (or at the very least, command Windows to do so). Also it's debatable whether this program does any harm on non "copilot" computers but you can be the judge of that.
For those like me who are stuck with win 11 on your work computer be aware that KDE makes windows builds for some of their software like the Dolphin file explorer: https://apps.kde.org/dolphin/
It’s not officially supported yet and has some issues but I’ve been using it for a few days now and it’s been quite nice
Some issues I’ve run into are: not being able to open archives into dolphin; issues with not being able to move files to the trash bin (although deleting it works fine)
Also I’m pretty sure that Recall is deep in the kernel so you might not be able to run the explorer shell at all. Unfortunately there really isn’t a good alternative since litestep has been abandoned :(
Back in the day you could even just replace the Windows shell with Plasma, the early 2000s were interesting
Linux file browsers are a load of crap to be honest. I always install Explorer++ when I have to use Windows. Microsoft's own winfile is also very nice, though Explorer++ is basically just a better version of that.