I actually looked at BYOD computers and it only happens when a certain non-Microsoft software cough AV that sounds like coffee cough tried to modify the start tiles/menu for no good reason (corrupting the file in its process and forcing Windows to reset it).

Note: I'm not in the US. It seems that Americans tend to complain about this more. I don't know if it was deliberately done or not in that case.

Hasn't happened to me. My start menu always remains the same after updates. Maybe use an alternate start menu if that's the problem. There are no ads anywhere else IIRC.

I don't use Windows, just have to maintain my parents machine.

I can tell you first hand that at least not always true. I removed it once and its gone ever since.

Was Pinball an ad? A preinstalled game is not an ad. Annoying? Sure. Ad? No. An ad is what that one time they put an actual ad on the lock screen.

As far as I recall pinball had no micro transactions.

For what it's worth I always enjoyed the "stock" games like pinball, solitaire, freecell and minesweeper. But I liked them tucked away under the clear label of the games sub menu, and without any pressure to use them

Micro transactions do suck, and I wish the trend of them would just die, but that doesn’t make a game an ad. You also have a point of the games being tucked away with the option of bringing them out if you wanted. Microsoft should’ve done that.

Candy Crush and Minecraft are not installed. Clicking on the items in the start menu opens the Windows Store.