Well, if the user has paid for Windows 10, whether as part of a new machine, or at retail, they shouldn't ever get advertisements in the OS. Even for Home editions. This constant encroachment of advertising into all aspects of life needs to stop. Please.

Advertising is a cancer on modern society.

And people really need to stop expecting that paid products won't show ads. From the POV of the provider, not showing ads would mean leaving money on the table (you likely won't quit paying over just an ad here or there). On top of that, as a paid customer, you self-identify as a real person with disposable income, making yourself much more valuable a target for advertisers.

If I have to use Windows I install server. It is missing all of this. But lack of WHQL drivers means it usually won't run on portables.

It tells you a lot when all of the few Microsoft employees I've met run the server edition of Windows (in this case 2016) on their development machines; these are people who basically have completely legal access to use any of Microsoft's OSs, and they don't pick Win10. The one who I asked about it said it was faster to boot, more responsive, and "less distracting" (probably an euphemism.)

I'm a Softie, and I use Win10. Server 2020 is the same codebase now, I'm not sure there'd be much difference, and I appreciate the creature comforts of the shell.

But.. I still get winrot, and my dev environment drives me mad. I've been working on a laptop since covid started, and my dev machine is a VM on the laptop, so it's a nightmare.

At home I run NixOS with a Win10 VFIO setup for games. Both Linux and Windows at home are drama-free, but I don't abuse my home computer nearly as much and it's much more powerful than the work laptop.

I’m a Microsoft employee and I run Linux (with a win10 VM for those times I absolutely need it).