[WorldMaker]

> Still tries to force cortana on me despite my computer not even having a mic.

For what it is worth, Cortana has been basically entirely turned off in either 20H1 or 20H2 on new installs.

> It places ads in the start menu.

It's less annoying about that if you pay the $99 for the upgrade from Home to Pro.

> Case in point. Click start, settings, and look at the window that pops up. Where are the settings to add a new wifi AP?

Settings > Network & Internet > Wi-Fi > Show all available networks

Though that just opens the window for you that you'd get if you clicked the Network Indicator button directly on the Taskbar which is the fastest/direct path. (It wouldn't have occurred to me to try to path to it from the Settings app, though it is interesting that you can.)

[deelowe]

> It's less annoying about that if you pay the $99 for the upgrade from Home to Pro.

I'm on pro. Have been since the start. It still shoves bing results and app suggestions and all sorts of other stuff into the start menu by default. I've long since turned all that stuff off, so maybe it's improved...

[WorldMaker]

I haven't noticed anything of those sorts of suggestions on the Start Menu in a long while. Though I probably did turn things off once long ago. I also use a Microsoft Account to login to Windows and I've also heard that makes a difference sometimes in the number of "suggestions" that you see (in that it shows more for Local only accounts for some reason possibly as dumb as "has no way to remember what suggestions it has already shown to you").