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.
I actually managed to excise Edge from my system entirely, so pressing F1 in explorer doesn’t launch it anymore.
Dsspite some people warning that Edge was needed for some “core web functionality” it has broken nothing except the handful of places where they want to force you to launch a link in Edge. In that case nothing happens, but that’s not a big deal since I know how to use search engines to find information, which is the only purpose those features served.
It took quite a few steps but I got there. There are a few extra steps to stop it coming back in the next update but you can do it.