Use Windows 10 LTSC IOT. It's already fairly slimmed down so it's good enough to be a daily driver. It's also supported until at least 2028 if memory serves, possibly longer?
If you want to go further, something like https://www.ntlite.com can be used to remove unnecessary services.
I had problems trying to run prior LTSC builds. They get security updates, but not feature updates. After a few years, some consumer software (games in particular) often start having problems because they are built assuming you run a consumer edition that is never more than a year or so behind.
> They get security updates, but not feature updates.
Well, obviously that's a feature, not a bug. Seeing as how 95% of "new" MS features seem to be some kind of spyware or advertising.
> After a few years, some consumer software (games in particular) often start having problems because they are built assuming you run a consumer edition that is never more than a year or so behind.
Any games in particular? I've been running IOT LTSC for about 1.5 years now and have had 0 issues, including gaming. Any issues were related to having to update Nvidia/AMD drivers or C++/.NET runtime updates and not the OS itself.
LTSC IOT is pretty new still, I wouldn't be surprised that an 18 month old build isn't quite having problems yet.
But by the end of 2020, there were a number of games that just wouldn't work on 1809, which was the most recent LTSC build available at the time. Even things like Gamepass flat out did not work.
It's all moot to me though, the WSL2 improvements in Windows 11 are enough to not want to go back.
