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.
Does Win11 not introduce anything ridiculous like having two control panels where the newer one is just a straight downgrade and often necessitates using the original one anyway? I would've thought it'd be filled to the brim with stuff like that.
Also on win10 the control panel still forcibly defaults to "small icons" even though on win7 it would remember the last setting selected.
Wasn't it the same in Win 10? Either way you can still use the old menus and the new ones are good enough for basic configuration at least. I dunno overall it just doesn't feel much different than Win 10 other than superficial things.