HATE THIS - Windows Search "Top Apps" - How do I remove it?

Oh dear, not again.

Having installed version 1903 I'm coming up against all the problems:

• Washed out colours and grey taskbar, which I finally fixed by manipulating the Personalization settings.
• Rich blue wallpaper replaced by light blue (see Windows/WEP folder). Had to fight with the permissions to get the previous wallpaper back.
• Cortana icon appeared back in the settings menu, despite Cortana being turned off. Group Policy Editor failed to get rid of it, but manipulating the Registry did.
• Language bar was added to the taskbar when I only have one default language and keyboard. After trawling through fine print in Settings I got rid of it.
• "Group by" and "Sort by" preferences in folders were defaulted to something I have never set. I've been through and reset everything to what I had before.
• Arrows appeared back on all desktop shortcuts, even though I had set them not to appear. I've now reset them again. MS, why do you keep messing with my settings?
• Apps were deleted because they "don't work on this version of Windows". Nonsense. I re-installed them and they work perfectly.
• Xbox Game Bar and Your Phone apps were added to the Programs Menu. I don't want either of these but they aren't deletable.....YET.
• Then the problem with the Search Bar, for which nobody has found a solution yet. What possible use is this? It adds nothing and annoys everybody.

This is the list after two days. I'll probably find more misbehaviour as time goes on, not to mention what will be added by version 1909 that landed today.

Why, oh why does MS mess about with things that don't need fixing? I haven't found ONE, SINGLE improvement in version 1903. Only a lot of useless changes.

Top Apps is yet another way for Microsoft to spy on you and track what software you use frequently. I don't care what items I used most in the jump list, so I disable that. I don't care about what places I visit on the web, so I disable that on the startup page.  You would think, with this, MS would get the picture. If you disable certain items on Windows 10, like I have, these top apps never change.  There is a flaw even in this feature.  Leave us to say, one uses Notepad/wordpad all the time, along with a few web browsers, and a photo editor on daily basis, so these items should be TOP APPS all the time, yet that isn't the case. Before I tweaked the OS, if I just installed some program, and didn't even launch, Windows would display it as a top App.  What does that mean? that means that MS is tracking every program you install regardless even if you don't use it,;at least that is how I sense what is going on.   I haven't found a Reg Tweak to remove the display of this, however, based on previous experience, I am sure, one could go into a certain program file with a hex editor and possibly it could be a DLL file that you could change to clear that out. Being this is a search feature, and tied into Cortana, a person would have to tinker there,  I haven't done this, but I disable everything I can in SETTINGS, and use Winaero tweaker to disable stuff, like Cortana, Web search from Desktop, etc, and at the end result, my top four apps remaing the same all the time, in the same order. Not even the new programs I install and even if I use them all day long, are not list.  I use chrome every day, and yet, it isn't listed as a top app. I use file manager, and system tools everyday, and yet, they are not listed. So this tells me, I can't remove TOP APPS, yet, I managed to disable SOFTWARE TRACKING BY MICROSOFT.

First thing you need to do is to update your computer to the latest build.   18362 is now up to 18362.175.