Don't bother with cleaning script, they can fuck things up, and the benefit is questionable, as it's a whack-a-mole basically. Windows 11 is not a hard requirement, and I don't think it will be in the coming few years, so I went with Windows 10 LTSC. Lots of useless crap is cut from it, so no Cortana, no Store, no Edge even, and no feature updates. There are security updates however! So it's a nice, stable, useful edition, with no downsides for gaming.

Real businesses will not put up with this nonsense and that's why LTSC exists.

I'm also wondering if you can just run server editions.

npteljes

I don't think businesses care too much. LTSC is for when you need the system to not change over time, but still get some security updates, not simply business use - for that, there's the Enterprise edition of course.

intelVISA

Annoyingly LTSC costs around $300ish for the typical end user and has an inordinate amount of hoops just to buy it... makes it difficult to recommend to family so I curse them with Arch instead.

npteljes

I personally run my own activation server (https://github.com/Wind4/vlmcsd), and just point the Windows installation there. Or you can use one of the many servers that are floating around the internet. Either way, it's a bit annoying unfortunately.

Also, my country's second hand electronics market has LTSC keys for sale for like $25. That might be worth looking into.