I agree that W10 is garbage, at least oob. I have found that there are tweaks you can do to make it better.
> the "File" menu in Microsoft Word opens across the whole screen with most of it being empty space,
Is this not to do with the version of word? My schools win 7 computers had this as well.
> the start menu fucking shows ads
I don't remember how I turned it off, but none of the win 10 computers I use show adds in the start menu. (They still do in solitaire though).
> search can't help itself but do random internet searches.
Yup, that's annoying as all get out.
> Always on "Cortana"
I think there's a way to turn off Cortana being used constantly, I don't know if it actually stops it in the background though.
> On top of that, it's basically spyware.
Yup. I only use it for games for this very reason.
...
What it comes down to is what
Read the rest
you're willing to deal with. I'd rather risk M$ spying on my games then some (slightly) less ethical attacker getting a foothold onto my network.
Oh, also if you do ever wind up needing to move to 10, you may like this [1].
[1] https://github.com/Open-Shell/Open-Shell-Menu