You upgrade to professional and edit the local group policy settings and this is no longer a problem

Microsoft is user hostile and all but there is a good product in there somewhere

> You upgrade to professional and

It is like the old “Linux is only free if your time is worth nothing”.

Windows only costs what-ever-portion-of-you-new-machine's-price-it-is⁰, if your time, privacy¹, attention², and just your general desire to be given some respect³, are all worth nothing.

I kept Windows on my main home PC when 10 tuned up (I very nearly switched then) because of games & DayJob compatibility, and a side-order of laziness. These days I game very little⁴, DayJob stuff never touches my personal equipment, and panel-beating Windows into being less annoying is much more effort than Linux on the desktop⁵, so that is the way I've gone.

--------

[0] Very few people buy Windows directly. Standard UK pricing for Win11 Home is £119, but I doubt more than a few people pay close to that much.

[1] Even if you pay for Enterprise licensing, I'd easily believe that without jumping a few hoops there are still potential issues here for the truly concerned.

[2] Adverts on the 'king start menu and elsewhere? Get stuffed. No, I didn't want to consider installing “Keeper of the Golden Bollock”, or whatever that game was that popped up as an option when I was starting keepass on the [day job] laptop the other day…

[3] I consider the pop-ups and other nagging inserts, for adverts and extolling the virtues of CoPilot & other things, that only have “yes” and “maybe later” buttons with no “leave me alone, I know it exists, when/if I want to look at it I'll let you know” option, as signs of disrespect.

[4] That industry has pushed me away with irritations too, and I have significant other hobbies now.

[5] Linux has been my core OS server-side for decades, but aside from my University years and the netbook era that MS killed, I've not used it significantly elsewhere⁶ for long periods.

[6] caveat: I'm counting Android as different enough to be considered something else, more so as the walls around that garden are slowly inching up.

Even upgrading to Pro is not enough to completly remove all the junk in Windows without an unreasonable amount of effort. Enterprise is easier to debloat but that is not as easy to come by for the average user.