I'm wondering if there's any preferable pirate copies of 10 or 11 that people are using that cuts most of that shit out out of the box
No, but you can install a regular copy of Windows 11 and debloat it with just a little bit of elbow grease.
First, you go here:
https://massgrave.dev
You get Microsoft Activation Scripts.
Then, you go to Microsoft's official website and get a Windows 11 ISO.
Now, you're gonna be pirating it anyway, and with the consumer ISO you'll have a choice between Home, Pro and Education. You'll want to choose Education, as somehow that edition has a lot of bullshit cut out by default, essentially what Pro should be. There's also "Pro Education", but you want "Education" without the "Pro" in the name. Confusing naming scheme, as usual with Microsoft.
During install, you'll want to "set up your PC for use in a company", and then choose to make a "domain account". It's all purposefully hidden away under submenus and unfamiliar naming, but that's what makes the "classic" account and avoids pairing your local account with your Microsoft account. It's possible to later add your Microsoft account for things like MS Store without converting the local account to an MS one.
Quick tangent: the "use for company" and "domain joining" terminology is something that was always a thing with Windows, but now Microsoft is using the fact no one knows this shit to get people to make MS accounts instead. The first modern Windows version, Windows NT 3.1, was designed strictly for business use, so local accounts could join a domain to do local networking or remote management. But when Windows Me, the last of the 9x lineage was a failure, with Windows XP, the first Windows NT for home consumers, those domain accounts were neatly rebranded to the well-known local accounts. But anyway, moving on.
Once you're done with that, you'll want to run
WinUtil to do some debloating, telemetry disabling and additional tweaks, like postponing full system updates for as long as possible, only prioritizing security updates. It also has an option to completely delete Edge, which will break some functionality you'd most probably never use in the first place.
After all that you should have a fairly clean, hassle-free Windows 11 install that stays out of your way, doesn't shove any bullshit in your face and does what Windows was always meant to do: just run your fucking software of choice. Obviously it's not ideal and you need to put in some work to get Windows to what it was meant to be at, but that's how it always was. The only thing that changed is the amount of work needed to get to this point.
As for Windows 10 LTSC, I'd advise from staying away from it. LTSC is not just a "bloat free Windows that Microsoft refuses to give us", it's a very specific version of Windows. It has a frozen kernel, as it's meant for specific enterprise use where you need an OS that doesn't radically change with updates. As a home consumer, you don't really want that, as the software you'll run will be moving alongside the general availability versions, and chances are it'll rely on features of the newer kernel you don't have. Microsoft releases new LTSC versions every few years, and chances are in those few years something might not work on your LTSC install. And to install, and then upgrade LTSC, you need to source an ISO, and those are only officially available to paying enterprise customers, otherwise you have to source them from elsewhere and put your trust into Internet randoms that they didn't plant something nasty in it.
Oh yeah, Windows 10 LTSC. The current Win10 LTSC version is LTSC 2021, it is a frozen kernel of Win10 21H2. The IoT version, meant for embedded devices such as automatic cash registers or order kiosks, is supported until 2032. Hence with the aforementioned issues it's a bad idea to rely on it even though it's supported until 2032, because most likely software like Chrome or Firefox will begin dropping support for Windows 10, and sooner than later you'll be experiencing issues. Windows 11 LTSC might come out somewhere this year, but all the issues I've mentioned still stand, so I'd strongly advise to go with the GA versions.
