I too bought a Windows 10 Pro license, which was quite expensive. A while back I heard about the long-term service branch and I wanted to buy a legal license, but apparently it's only available for businesses and it requires purchasing at least 5 licenses. You can buy a LTSB license from third-party Russian vendors, but I think that's legally grey.
Recently I heard about Windows 10 Pro for Workstations, which allegedly doesn't include all the bloated crap and lets you disable most annoyances. But I haven't been able to definitively confirm this is the case. I read somewhere you can upgrade from Windows 10 Pro to Windows 10 Pro for Workstation, but it's quite ridiculous to pay them even more money just to remove / disable some features.
I've run a few programs that let you disable most of the things I don't use or care for... But you have to re-run them each major upgrade cycle, because Microsoft usually re-enables a bunch of crap after upgrades.
At this point I've pretty much accepted that Windows 10 is diametrically opposed to my interests, so I just try to avoid it as much as possible. I dual-boot Linux and Windows 10, and I only use it to play games which I can't easily run on Linux.
To anyone that feels like they have to comment because they're happy with Windows 10 and all those features: great for you! You can stick with something that you like and works for you. I'm not trying to force my preference down other people's throat.
Recently I heard about Windows 10 Pro for Workstations, which allegedly doesn't include all the bloated crap and lets you disable most annoyances. But I haven't been able to definitively confirm this is the case. I read somewhere you can upgrade from Windows 10 Pro to Windows 10 Pro for Workstation, but it's quite ridiculous to pay them even more money just to remove / disable some features.
I've run a few programs that let you disable most of the things I don't use or care for... But you have to re-run them each major upgrade cycle, because Microsoft usually re-enables a bunch of crap after upgrades.
At this point I've pretty much accepted that Windows 10 is diametrically opposed to my interests, so I just try to avoid it as much as possible. I dual-boot Linux and Windows 10, and I only use it to play games which I can't easily run on Linux.
To anyone that feels like they have to comment because they're happy with Windows 10 and all those features: great for you! You can stick with something that you like and works for you. I'm not trying to force my preference down other people's throat.