10 ms·

I've had good luck with the winutil tool, which is wrapper for a bunch of powershell commands and registry edits in a .ps1 to remove bloat. After using it on a

by kipchak 6mo ago

I've had good luck with the winutil tool, which is wrapper for a bunch of powershell commands and registry edits in a .ps1 to remove bloat. After using it on a fresh install I can't recall the last time I've had any of the mentioned issues. If you're (understandably) concerned about the security implications most of the changes can be done manually going off the docs. https://github.com/christitustech/winutil https://github.com/christitustech/winutil

anthk 6mo ago
Bloat will come back on every update. It's futile.
- ewoodrich 6mo ago
  I’ve used this Powershell script on every Windows 11 machine in the last four years (5+ devices) and have never needed to re-run it after an update. It’s the first thing I do on a fresh install, and with my selections I see fewer ads (0, more or less) than I do on my MacBook for iCloud products so I’d hardly say it’s “futile” in actual use and only takes like 5 minutes to run once. I always hear people say nothing sticks after an update but have literally only encountered that with Microsoft Edge and the default search engine. Not any of the Windows features disabled or configured by the script. Not sure if it’s just outdated or a meme being repeated by non-Windows users but in any case it is not at all what I’ve experienced exclusively running debloated Windows 11 installs for years. https://github.com/raphire/win11debloat https://github.com/raphire/win11debloat
  - Atlas26 6mo ago
    > I always hear people say nothing sticks after an update but have literally only encountered that with Microsoft Edge and the default search engine. Not any of the Windows features disabled or configured by the script. Not sure if it’s just outdated or a meme being repeated by non-Windows users but in any case it is not at all what I’ve experienced exclusively running debloated Windows 11 installs for years. Yup. From what I’ve gathered, there was once a legitimate bug that did renable features that users previously disabled, and from then on that just became canon behavior for windows, even though they fixed that issue fairly quickly and I did not see it reappear. I have a similar experience, stuff that was disabled magically becoming re-enabled is not something that’s ever happened to me either over the years with windows.
    - quyse 6mo ago
      I had Windows on a Lenovo laptop, and Windows update installed and/or re-enabled Lenovo system services almost every time (those included things like popups helpfully telling you that you pressed CapsLock and crap like this). I ran debloating scripts, tried fiddling with policies, etc, but Windows Update would inevitably bring those services back. Another thing is Intel drivers. There's official Intel driver assistant software which installs latest drivers for Intel things (graphics, network, and so on). Only for Windows to re-install their "stable" outdated graphics driver next time it sees it. Again, I couldn't stop it. How hard is it for Windows to see that the driver already installed is newer already? Why even Intel cannot talk to Microsoft and decide between themselves a solution for this?
      - Atlas26 5mo ago
        This is guaranteed just to be windows reinstalling drivers it thinks the laptop needs by default for basica functionality (it is considering the Lenovo service a standard system driver like the Intel ones since sometimes those are used to enable custom key and other functionality, so it makes sense to be a default driver so everything works out of the box for non technical customers). This is easily disabled by simply setting group policy manager to not automatically install drivers. I’ll happily shit on windows endlessly but I can’t fault them for this, I think with the windows driver model this makes sense, otherwise you’re gonna have a ton of issues cropping up for normal users, especially since power users can always disable the policy. That was always one of the first policies I set and it never gave me any issues or automatically reinstalled unwanted/standard drivers again.
      - anthk 6mo ago
        Install "Bulk Crap uninstaller", which is libre software. Begin uninstalling every bloatware you find.
- kipchak 6mo ago
  I'm not sure if I'm lucky or it's because I have feature releases deferred or if the tool ripped enough things out but this hasn't been my experience so far. If it does you could save off the changes as a JSON template and re-apply after updates, or automatically with task scheduler.
- gruez 6mo ago
  Use LTSC and you get 10 year support period, so you can update whenever it's convenient for you.
  - da_chicken 6mo ago
    Yeah, that's a PITA for Windows 11. It's an extra cost. $100 to $200. You can't buy it, generally, except through a volume licensing partner. You may need to have a tenant ID depending on exactly how you're getting it, too. Alternately, you need to have a Visual Studio subscription which is $3k/yr. Oh, and you can't upgrade to LTSC from Pro. You have to do a fresh install. And IoT LTSC is even worse.
IG_Semmelweiss 6mo ago
hmmmm does this work if you are unable to skip account creating?

by kipchak 6mo ago

anthk 6mo ago

Bloat will come back on every update. It's futile.

ewoodrich 6mo ago
I’ve used this Powershell script on every Windows 11 machine in the last four years (5+ devices) and have never needed to re-run it after an update. It’s the first thing I do on a fresh install, and with my selections I see fewer ads (0, more or less) than I do on my MacBook for iCloud products so I’d hardly say it’s “futile” in actual use and only takes like 5 minutes to run once. I always hear people say nothing sticks after an update but have literally only encountered that with Microsoft Edge and the default search engine. Not any of the Windows features disabled or configured by the script. Not sure if it’s just outdated or a meme being repeated by non-Windows users but in any case it is not at all what I’ve experienced exclusively running debloated Windows 11 installs for years. https://github.com/raphire/win11debloat https://github.com/raphire/win11debloat
- Atlas26 6mo ago
  > I always hear people say nothing sticks after an update but have literally only encountered that with Microsoft Edge and the default search engine. Not any of the Windows features disabled or configured by the script. Not sure if it’s just outdated or a meme being repeated by non-Windows users but in any case it is not at all what I’ve experienced exclusively running debloated Windows 11 installs for years. Yup. From what I’ve gathered, there was once a legitimate bug that did renable features that users previously disabled, and from then on that just became canon behavior for windows, even though they fixed that issue fairly quickly and I did not see it reappear. I have a similar experience, stuff that was disabled magically becoming re-enabled is not something that’s ever happened to me either over the years with windows.
  - quyse 6mo ago
    I had Windows on a Lenovo laptop, and Windows update installed and/or re-enabled Lenovo system services almost every time (those included things like popups helpfully telling you that you pressed CapsLock and crap like this). I ran debloating scripts, tried fiddling with policies, etc, but Windows Update would inevitably bring those services back. Another thing is Intel drivers. There's official Intel driver assistant software which installs latest drivers for Intel things (graphics, network, and so on). Only for Windows to re-install their "stable" outdated graphics driver next time it sees it. Again, I couldn't stop it. How hard is it for Windows to see that the driver already installed is newer already? Why even Intel cannot talk to Microsoft and decide between themselves a solution for this?
    - Atlas26 5mo ago
      This is guaranteed just to be windows reinstalling drivers it thinks the laptop needs by default for basica functionality (it is considering the Lenovo service a standard system driver like the Intel ones since sometimes those are used to enable custom key and other functionality, so it makes sense to be a default driver so everything works out of the box for non technical customers). This is easily disabled by simply setting group policy manager to not automatically install drivers. I’ll happily shit on windows endlessly but I can’t fault them for this, I think with the windows driver model this makes sense, otherwise you’re gonna have a ton of issues cropping up for normal users, especially since power users can always disable the policy. That was always one of the first policies I set and it never gave me any issues or automatically reinstalled unwanted/standard drivers again.
    - anthk 6mo ago
      Install "Bulk Crap uninstaller", which is libre software. Begin uninstalling every bloatware you find.
kipchak 6mo ago
I'm not sure if I'm lucky or it's because I have feature releases deferred or if the tool ripped enough things out but this hasn't been my experience so far. If it does you could save off the changes as a JSON template and re-apply after updates, or automatically with task scheduler.
gruez 6mo ago
Use LTSC and you get 10 year support period, so you can update whenever it's convenient for you.
- da_chicken 6mo ago
  Yeah, that's a PITA for Windows 11. It's an extra cost. $100 to $200. You can't buy it, generally, except through a volume licensing partner. You may need to have a tenant ID depending on exactly how you're getting it, too. Alternately, you need to have a Visual Studio subscription which is $3k/yr. Oh, and you can't upgrade to LTSC from Pro. You have to do a fresh install. And IoT LTSC is even worse.

IG_Semmelweiss 6mo ago

hmmmm does this work if you are unable to skip account creating?