> If you really want a clean windows environment, you are better off getting an IoT enterprise LTSC license.

Unfortunately seems like there's no way of getting a license legally without being a company. Windows Server seems easier to obtain but harder to morph into something useful (mostly because of missing drivers on Windows Update) though definitely possible.

So look at the dependency tree and add back what is missing. We are hackers here afterall.

The ultimate way of installing windows least bloated is chosing Region "English (World)" - as usually the bloatware is country specific. Avoid US, UK, etc. That's where the Candy Crush comes with.

Apple was a great option before they moved to ARM. Now they can't run much of anything (and it sucks).

I still have my mid-2015 MBP running triple-boot between macOS, Windows and Arch Linux. That machine could run everything...

I now have to keep around a physical PC desktop in order to run games like ARC Raiders. I use OBS with a capture card to use my MacBook's screen as a monitor for the PC, and an application called Deskflow to forward the MacBook's keyboard to the PC (I connect the mouse directly). Also, SonoBus for voice chat, since the PC doesn't have a microphone built-in. It works well enough.

I'm installing Linux over the break. The last time I seriously ran it was Slackware 2.0. If it doesn't run in Wine, it will run in a vm. I'm so done with this shit. And I'm one of the few that actually purchased a Win11 Pro license at full price. I really wanted to believe. They've lost their mind with copilot. Imagine if they put as much effort into making their products better as they have pushing copilot. The sad thing is there will be a copilot hit, and it won't be anything they built with all this effort. It will be an acquisition, like openai. They should just stick to making their products better and buy it when it comes.

> I am tired of fighting my own OS.

People cite bugs or incompatible software on Linux as a reason to avoid it and use Windows, but they fail to recgonize that Windows actively fights you. I'd take something that's slightly and mistakenly broken on an utterly open platform where I can fix it if I care enough over a closed platform that's actively trying to screw me over.

Gee. You make it sound like breaking Microsoft Store and Windows Updates are /bad/ things. :-/

Agreed. I had to run Windows recovery only once over the last 5+ years, after running some debloating script with many thousands stars on GitHub.

I think the Pro version is enough for reasonable experience, most of the terrible stories originate from the Home version, which should be avoided like the plague.

With Windows you don't troubleshoot issues. You nuke the system, and run the optimizations again.

Tweaks are divided into essential and advanced. The essential ones shouldn't have any negative impact on the system. They also document the changes each tweak makes (so you can undo them): https://winutil.christitus.com/dev/.

> When someone already has a broken system...

To be fair, this tool doesn't claim to fix a broken system; as near as I can tell it doesn't actually remove the underlying Windows installation, so the core problem will remain.

Even though he is sending mixed messages, it is clearly stated that misuse may break the system. The other nice thing about going the PowerShell automation route is the ability to see what was done and reverse particular changes (assuming you can track down which change broke things). That's in start contrast to the binary-only utilities I've seen in the past, where you're pretty much stuck trusting the vendor's claims.

You really hit the nail on the head.

in conclusion:

>still requires knowing exactly what each tweak does. Used without that understanding, tools like this can easily create confusing problems.

Which I have always taken as extreme encouragement to use performance-improving setting configuations, and therefore gain the understanding to do so effectively.

If I can do it, anybody can, I'm no engineer.

With this approach in mind it makes the Titus offerings show a remarkable amount of superiority.

As another commenter has noted, 2022 is just when his Utility was beginning to get noticed.

It is being kept up-to-date with Windows 11 as it evolves.

> troubleshooting

I tried that. The advice was to reinstall. Then I remembered that this is the convention with Windows -- when it stops working, reinstall...

What do you mean by consumer-oriented stuff?

I'm typing this on my company azure ad integrated windows 11. The system info says it's windows 11 enterprise 25h2.

My start menu still has multiple random xbox crap in there, game bar (what even is that?!), "game mode", "solitaire and casual games". It shows random ads in the weather app. It invites me to do more with a microsoft account, even though the computer is fully azure ad joined and my windows session is an azure ad account with some expensive office365 licence attached.

Before reinstalling the other day for unrelated reasons, I had actually tried to add that account. Turns out it doesn't work with a "work or school" account, it requires the personal one, but it doesn't say it clearly, only that "something went wrong".

I honestly don't see any difference when compared to my personal windows install I use for the occasional game and Lightroom / Photoshop.

> I mind when my Weather program

is changed into a stock ticker and tabloid news cornucopia... dagnabbit, I know where to get those, I just want the weather info.

"They have no taste" was right.

https://github.com/ChrisTitusTech/winutil - That's what you're looking for. Kept updated for latest Windows 11

Don't know if 2022 is needed since this seems to be an evergreen page for an actively developed tool (last update was 3 weeks ago).

https://github.com/ChrisTitusTech/winutil/releases/tag/25.12...

You can visualize performance using Windows' built-in Performance Monitor.

It's not a comparison app, but you can check different resources in detail both before and after disabling un-needed features.

Disk activity is one of the things reported in real time, as well as memory usage, but the Gb of bloat on the OS drive is not a consideration.

Inhibiting things which are useless to you from occupying memory, may be less than 1 Gb but may still be worth it, but that is different than disk drive bloat which can really get massively out-of-hand.

Drive Gb is expected to grow with each additional program you install, but further drive bloat has often dwarfed that as preinstalled apps have proliferated, written by those who do not have experience using limited resources to a serious degree of efficiency.

And then after non-security updates became mandatory, each year this lack of professional experience has an accelerating impact across-the board, and by now you are expected to accomodate a dozen or more gigabytes than last year.

And both Windows 10 and Windows 11 were more functional in some ways than a year ago too.

Cut back on memory waste by keeping things from loading until an event when you yourself really need it.

Cut back on drive bloat by uninstalling things you know you are never going to need.

It's not, but please enlighten us, what is exactly confronting the abuse here?

Writing your own OS?

Funny you should mention Linux.

Isn't that pretty much Windows IoT LTSC?

There are even more minimal Windows versions, but easy, convenient, legal distribution is kind of tricky

That is what you're looking at.

Any more than this you get sued for distributing MS owned code.

> Can we please have someone make and maintain a safe, good, minimal and reliable Windows distribution like Alpine Linux?

First: "safe" and Windows never ever matched. Not in Windows 98, not in Millenium, not in Vista. Not ever.

I, reluctantly, after having confiscated my mother-in-law's Windows laptop and replacing it with a Chromebook about two years ago (which still works fine for her btw), ordered her a new desktop PC six months ago, running Windows 11.

Six months.

Six months is all it took for this piece of shit to become infected to the point of being unusable. Malware over malware took over: whatever 0-click or 1-click exploit in Edge that took over the machine and tells her to call indian scam center to help her "get her PC rid of viruses", blinking left and right, covering half the screen.

In other words: good old Windows. It's 20-fucking-25, nearly 26, and Microsoft still cannot ship an OS that's not rooted when a grandma is browsing for less than six months.

Pathetic.

Windows is a mediocre piece of insecure (and now spying) turd.

I fully agree with you: reliable Linux distros are the Windows replacement.

And as we've reached a point where everyone except some part of the corporate world can do everything they need from an Android smartphone and these same people are just fine with a Linux distro on their laptop or desktop, people can be switched. And some are. And the numbers of "desktop Linux" users are slowly but surely growing.

I don't care about the snarky "2026 is the year of Linux on the desktop". Linux conquered everything: all the servers, all the routers, 500 of the world top 500 supercomputers, etc. Linux shall conquer the laptop and the desktop too.

And those who don't switch have two choices: MacOS (pricey hardware) or be slaves to that turdery on bits that Windows is.

P.S: actually I don't even care: be it Linux or MacOS or BeOS or Atari's TOS: anything but Microsoft.