Harden Thicke improperly top-poasted and full-quoted:

Is there a way to stop the useless creation of .XML files in the
\WINDOWS\PCHealth\HelpCtr\DataColl\ directory?

Google for it.

I did. No correct search result.

It would be useful for those that give knee-jerk responses to "google"
for an answer do so themselves to verify that an answer to the question
can actually be found using that method.