Basically, install Windows as you normally would, but when asked for Time and Currency format, select English (World) instead of your country.
Then let the installer do its thing. Eventually, you will see a window with an ice cream cone on the floor with the words “Something went wrong” and the error message “OOBEREGION.” This cryptic message means that the “out of box experience” (OOBE) didn’t launch because it didn’t know which region to launch.
Click Skip, though, and Windows will install just fine. You won’t be prompted to buy Microsoft 365, you won’t be prompted to pay for a OneDrive subscription, and your Start menu won’t be cluttered with apps.
They’re going nowhere. It’s making money, Microsoft is using that income to offset development cost instead of just selling the OS at a flat reasonable rate. It’s part of the Windows business model now.
Windows is entrenched, they own most of the business world, they will never face serious kickback for their design decisions. Not at this point. Not until Gen Z gets old enough and numerous enough to start pushing workplaces to adopt Apple, and that’s an even worse direction.
This isn’t ever going to change. The only thing they’ll do is give tools to Enterprise editions for businesses to control the install, and only via Azure, at a price point far too high for the average user. Anything less than Enterprise will be locked down and monetized to hell and back.
Effectively, if you’re not a business, you will not have true control over Windows. Users no longer get to be admins. You have to pay for that privilege.
Elder millennial here. This was said of us, too. I remember main framers sometimes noting this direction and poking fun.
Yet here I am and the world keeps chugging along in similar ways.