Right. Any particular resource/list of known Win11 annoyances you've used as reference or did you just tackle them one by one?

I’ve put a text-based guide out on GitHub for people to follow. It covers both the initial installation, as well as all my post-install recommendations. It eliminates I believe all the tracking, adware, suggestions, feeding the Bing/ChatGPT machine, telemetry, etc. Absolutely nothing breaks. I’ve had some seniors at some very prolific companies vet the guide by using it themselves — should be straightforward and to-the-click/keystroke for Windows 11 22H2 as of 2023-05-02.

https://github.com/GoofGarage/Win11Clean

I went with just text, point-and-click directions initially so people can at least intuit how they’d reverse any changes.

The overwhelming majority of things can be done via the Settings app UI. Some are Local Group Policy settings. There’s a few PowerShell script commands to remove pre-installed packages. There’s only 2 or 3 registry tweaks.

This is really excellent, thank you!

I degarbaged mine by installing linux and calling it a day. Why would i want to pay for a product that constantly pushes for things i dont want, doesn't respect my privacy, runs ads on my desktop and looks horrible? Worse, microsoft, an extremely profitable corporation relies on the goodwill of people like you to turn it into a positive experience. Shame you dont prefer linux because your help would be greatly appreciated in making it an even better experience.

I have used Linux since 1996. Since before the 2.0 kernel. Back when GNU Hurd was coming out any day now.

Heck, I’ve used Debian since Debian 1.0.

Most of my home infrastructure is Linux and BSD. I’ve used MacOS very heavily since 2004. I used to daily-drive VMS on both VAXes and Alpha. I still miss parts of Solaris. Amber was the better terminal color.

I do have to use Windows quite a bit in a professional environment - even if simply as a window manager - so when I had to create environments for myself, I made sure it wasn’t ever a hindrance. Moreover, I’ve had people ask to make it easy for them. Historically I distributed guides as a one-off to friends and colleagues, but yesterday finally released it for everyone to take advantage of.

Damn that's impressive. I should have guessed you had an open source background since you saw a problem, found a solution, then you shared it. In my set-up for the rare occasions when I do need windows, I run it inside Qemu and PCI Pass-through my laptop dedicated GPU and on my desktop a second GPU. I just can't stand what windows does in terms of privacy and nagware. It feels like it's run by the very same people that used to spread malware back in the day.

I dunno. Any time I've tried to submit a ticket for a GUI related problem on Linux the answer has been "talk to the hand".

You'd think allocating enough space for text labels to fit (and not overlap with each other, fall off the edge of the container, etc.) in the user interface is "blub"

https://wiki.c2.com/?BlubParadox

so far as Linux enthusiasts is concerned.

I don't know but the ui in KDE looks good to me. It may have been the case that linux users didn't care about looks but it seems like that's changing. I would totally not want to use an ugly looking os - that space is dominated by windows.

Youtube Channel "Chris Titus Tech" has few videos on removing bloat in Windows.

Please don't just blindly use a debloating tool without knowing the caveats.

Some people just want to get rid of telemetry & candy crush, not the ability to do math or look at photos on their computer.

For Microsoft, they're the same thing.

1 by 1. Whenever I see an ad I turn it off.