It's a readable .bat file, and all the executable dependencies are either from microsoft (dism, etc) or offer source code and/or hashing.

At some point you have to trust something, whether it be your software or your hardware.

Besides the telemetry stuff, it's not a trust issue. I just don't have a need for any of the packages I remove. I don't need cortana and search, I don't need Windows Defender and it's cloud features, I don't need onedrive, xbox, modern apps, etc. It's my choice, so I remove them.

> You don't trust Microsoft ... but trust some random .exe from a forum?

Perhaps the level of run-this-binary trust is about the same for both sources, but he trusts the motivation of the random-forumer more than those of Microsoft?

So many throwaway accounts. Anyway. You can probably achieve the same effect with the Remove-AppxPackage Powershell commandlet if you really want. I will also note that this "toolkit" is not just a bat file and also includes lots of cab files and other things as well.

These kinds of toolkits have existed since Windows 7 at least (NLite and friends). Some are the equivalent of putting go-faster stripes on your car, some actually work, some do things like https://twitter.com/SwiftOnSecurity/status/75879678600154726...

1 its bat not exe

2 its open source, as in you open bat file and read its source