My current environment - and one for many years, is just like you describe. No ads, instant launch (either from a launcher, or just type what I want and it pops up). No spyware, no account, no assistant. I even have a modern file manager that windows STILL hasn’t surpassed.
But I remember at the time when XP came out, Windows 2000 already was all those things, Beos was all those things, Macs were all those things.
Without the nasty (and limited) XP colors and theme, the 10 minute exploits, the huge waste of space in all the dialogs, and the beginning of the Pro vs Home licensing, where they started with the bullshit of home has: only 1 processor, no remote desktop, no 64 bit, they even removed windows backup!
You could exploit and gain admin in a Windows XP machine right to the end, it could not be locked down if a user sat at it. Which, I know, if you have access to the machine usually all bets are off, but for a multi user machine it was less than acceptable.