Please be specific, and/or link to any relevant documentation.
'cause I hit Advanced any time there was an option, and switched every privacy setting/tracking option off. Yet it still installs ads for Office, various other Bing shit, Installs Candy Crush, etc.
How do I avoid those using settings in the OOBE?
Candy crush does get installed on fresh Win10 installs, and the person responsible for that deal was drummed out of Microsoft, I believe, and once that agreement expires, that'll stop. In the meantime it takes literally 5 seconds to right-click the icon and choose "uninstall" then click the confirmation, and it wont ever come back.
Removed applications do not get reinstalled on a patch or OS upgrade.
Turning off advertisements turns off advertisements, and it will never switch back on by itself.
I don't understand what you mean by updated situation? Have things changed in the last month or two? From a commenter above, that's apparently not the case.
> once that agreement expires, that'll stop
Microsoft is large enough and profitable enough that if they actually cared, they'd pay out the agreement's terms and stop it. They could actually use it as a "We're sorry, we've stopped doing this" marketing to the folks who're pissed off about it.
> Removed applications do not get reinstalled on a patch or OS upgrade.
This isn't true, I've uninstalled various Xbox, Bing, Skype, "Get Office" and other stuff a few times now on the one machine.
> it takes literally 5 seconds to right-click the icon and choose "uninstall" then click the confirmation
And to repeat that again for eeevery damn ad/preload application. It takes a damn sight longer than 5 seconds to remove the ones you can actually remove. But there's still other preloaded apps like OneDrive that I can't remove or even hide.
Things have changed since Windows 10 was released, yes. The last 3-4 releases have honored your uninstallations; if you remove candy crush, upgrades to newer versions of Windows 10 will not replace it, UNLESS the image used to upgrade marks it for installation. The stock Windows 10 media from Microsoft does not, so stock media from Microsoft will not reinstall anything you uninstalled before you began the upgrade.
Other commenters agree with me, as well. Something situational to you is putting them back, I suspect.
>> it takes literally 5 seconds to right-click the icon and choose "uninstall" then click the confirmation
> And to repeat that again for eeevery damn ad/preload application. It takes a damn sight longer than 5 seconds to remove the ones you can actually remove. But there's still other preloaded apps like OneDrive that I can't remove or even hide.
It only takes me 5 seconds, but maybe my computer performs better than yours. If you're not on an SSD I can see why you say it takes longer than 5 seconds, certainly. You only need to uninstall the one time before upgrading to one of the last 3-4 releases of Windows. I forget exactly which one implemented the change. If you are using Windows 10 versions prescribed to you by your IT department, then all bets are off, because a lot of things tend to get customized in those scenarios and I can't know about those customizations and/or limitations.
If you use a Microsoft account, your settings for ads and other personalization preferences will persist across all devices you use that account on. You don't even need to associate your login details with your MSA, simply logging into that MSA on the account in question is enough to sync up those things.