I haven't had anything to do with windows in like 5+ years. I need to set up a laptop with it for someone tomorrow, I'm guessing W11 is nowadays recommended? what's currently the best option for a hassle free experience (no ads, no random game installs, no migrations to onedrive, etc)?
last time I did it, I used the W10 ISO from Microsoft, applied the hwidsomething and ran some debloater from github. back then there were some ESR LTSC ISOs available on torrent sites, is that still a thing?
the install is going to use firefox, chrome, skype, libreoffice, etc., they all autoupdate themselves, so it's going to be reasonably secure. what's my best bet for a set & forget situation? thanks.
I would install 11 from an official ISO, and set the region/localization in the installer to English (world). This will prevent windows from installing any apps like TikTok, instagram, Spotify etc during the initial install, and you can change it to US English localization in the settings right after setup. During the setup you can also skip using a Microsoft account by pressing shift+f10 to open command prompt, then type “oobe\bypassnro” and hit enter. It’ll restart but that restores the “I don’t have internet” setup option that lets you make a local account. Then do a KMS activation since HWID recently got patched