[scardine]

Interesting, may be I have some setting that prevents Cortana from annoying me and prevents windows from placing ads on the start menu. Not that I use the start menu often, generally I just hit the search box and start typing the name of the app I want (if it is not pinned to the task bar already).

I'm using Windows 10 Pro (Insider Preview fast track) and not seeing the annoyances you are experiencing.

[phishfi]

In my experience, the ads are only present at initial setup. Once you remove the shortcuts (and disable suggested apps), they don't show up again.