So I had similar concerns regarding Windows 11, but I sat down, learned how to clean it up, and put a Creative Commons open source guide for others to follow. I knew many other reluctant friends who are senior devs at prolific companies in the tech space, and with my guide they seem to have no real remaining complaints.

It covers both the initial installation, as well as all my post-install recommendations. It eliminates I believe all the tracking, adware, suggestions, Cortana, feeding the Bing/ChatGPT machine, telemetry, etc. Absolutely nothing breaks. No need for a Microsoft account. It should be straightforward and to-the-click/keystroke.

https://github.com/GoofGarage/Win11Clean

If there’s any bugbears, create an issue. I’ll be responding to them every few weeks, and I try to update the release every 3 months.

Is there a fix for the insidious problem of updates changing your settings to less secure/privacy conscious ones or is that a constant fight we just have to fight if you're on windows?

Yes. There are suggestions in the guide regarding handling auto updates.

Thanks! I skimmed through but didn't see anything, appreciate the answer!

This is gods work. But it also convinced me to not install windows 11. In particular the post install notes is such a massive amount of labor to get what I get out of the box with other OS. I’m now 100% convinced to not upgrade, and hold hope that Linux gaming as driven by valve matures into something usable by the time win10 becomes non-viable.

Regardless awesome guide thank you.

I don’t disagree. In terms of wall clock time, I do run through my entire guide prior to every release and it’s about one total hour including the installation of the OS itself, and I’d say 40 minutes or so is part 3, which is the bulk of the guide.

I don’t disagree that it shouldn’t be necessary, though thankfully it’s a one time cost.

Linux gaming works fine. I’ve not used windows for 3 years now.

I've bookmarked your guide, and will use it when I setup a W11 machine in 2025. I haven't used 11 yet, but I understand the taskbar is no longer full length and is now more like the mac dock.

Is there a fix for that other than installing something like OpenShell?

It’s not that it’s not full length, it’s that it’s center aligned by default. It’s a very quick change to left-align it again, and that’s in the guide.

Got it, thanks.

I had more problems with it being quite wide and not being able to move to top of screen

That may be fixed with https://github.com/valinet/ExplorerPatcher which restores win10 bar, there's no builtin solution to any of the above afaik

Labels, combining, alignment and displayed system icons (search, etc) may be configured in settings

Honestly I don't even use the win10 bar because it wouldn't let me ungroup applications even if the setting to do so was checked.

I have two monitors, and might want some distances of the same application to be on separate taskbars with two monitors, and it just wouldn't respect that at all.

I use OpenShell currently, but I really shouldn't have to.

Do you have a fix for the taskbar?

Fixing what? There are multiple sections in the guide addressing the task bar and start menu depending on what you’re looking to address.

You cannot drag files onto it to open in other programs or copy/move them, last I checked. This is a showstopper for my workflow. I just want to drag a file over my explorer icon, choose the window from the popup preview that I want to move it to, have the window get focus, and drop it in the window to move it. Or drag a file over a program icon, have the program get focus, and drop the file on it to open it. Apparently, that is too difficult to port from every previous version of Windows into v11. It sucks.

I just made a very cursory look into this, but this is possibly that a Group Policy default that has changed to a different setting in Windows 11 than it had been in previous versions of Windows.

It absolutely does work if you disable UAC via Group Policy, but disabling UAC in my opinion is much a step too far as that loosens security in too many areas and would greatly increase Windows 11's attack surface.

I'll open an issue to investigate trying to identify the Group Policy setting to change to specifically re-enable this behavior without disabling UAC. Be advised that it'll be a few weeks as I'll be waiting until the January patch to drop (should be January 9th, 2024) for me to test prior to the January 2024 update to the guide.

> I'll open an issue to investigate

Wow, that's awesome. Thanks! (I love HN)

Does the preview not open up? I run Windows 11 but I'm so old school that I don't group taskbar buttons and you drag a file to the taskbar it will bring the app into focus and I drop it on that app.

But I noticed that I don't get the preview when dragging over the button but that might also have something to do with my particular setup.

Every time there is a new Windows people say this and also mention how the previous version was so much better. It reminds me of the US election cycle where people say they're gonna move to Canada if person A wins.

Earlier this year I switched to Windows 11 then installed ExplorerPatcher, now its just like Windows 10 and I no longer care that is its Windows 11.

Because it strips out features, adds garbage in its place, and increasingly aggressively acts against powerusers. 10 and beyond are "good" as long as you don't go out of the tiny box of intended use.

I have never, ever seen another OS so intent on resetting my settings and reverting what I've installed. I even had a case where Windows Defender was removing cracked software even after being disabled.

> Because it strips out features, adds garbage in its place, and increasingly aggressively acts against powerusers. 10 and beyond are "good" as long as you don't go out of the tiny box of intended use.

What poweruser things are you trying to do that Windows 11 prevents?

WinXP and 7 were the peak. I tolerated 10, but as of this year I no longer own a windows machine and do not plan on ever owning one again.

The Service Packs degraded the XP-rience, IMO. I preferred 98SE or 2000 in a lot of ways. Happily loving Linux.

What are your major issues with W11? I just started using it for the first time recently because my work laptop came with it, and it is surprisingly smooth. There are some UI changes Im not a fan of, but its otherwise fast/snappy in a way Linux sometimes isnt for me.

My major issue is the CPU I bought when I bought windows 10 is not (officially) supported by windows 11, despite being the current generation when I'd bought it ...

My showstopper issue is that I cannot drag files onto the taskbar to open in other programs or copy/move them.

More details in my other comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38546849

I put together a new PC and went Windows 11 on it and I have it configured (with a few tools) to be exactly like Windows 10. I also had my Windows 10 configured to be mostly like Windows 7.

With some pretty minor changes and maybe purchasing some inexpensive software, Windows 11 is quite decent. Whenever I visit a stock Windows 11 machine I am a bit horrified.

So it is possible to turn off the advertisements in the OS and standard windows applications (that come with the OS)?

I don't know if I turned them off so much as avoid them entirely. Either way, I don't see any advertisements, links to tabloid articles, anything Bing, etc. Nothing at all. I would say it's identical to Windows 10 for me (which I also clean up a bit).

I use StartAllBack for Start menu and task bar customization.

Cool, that sounds positive. :)

At this point I would pay handsomely for an alternative to windows that isn't linux or macos.

I need windows sans microsoft.

Not a command line with partial graphical wrappers and not an OS exclusive to an overpriced line of propriety computers.

Windows but open source. Please.

Note:I have been on ubuntu for the past year, and hate it. Just like I hated whatever other distros the last 3 times I tried to switch in my life.

What do you expect this would look like? That's a billion dollar project if you consider the scale of the people involved in making it happen. And it would likely be better of spent on improving Linux desktop UX, which many nontechnical people already don't have serious objections to.

The core problem with linux is that it is built and maintained by people who love linux. It has lead to an OS that is great for grandmas and great for the linux tech nerd grandson who set it up for her.

But its an exercise in masochistic self flagellation to be a tech nerd with no interest in linux (learning OS structure and CLI syntax) to use it on a daily basis. Linux is extremely powerful via the command line. But I have no interest in learning/memorizing commands.

> But its an exercise in masochistic self flagellation to be a tech nerd with no interest in linux (learning OS structure and CLI syntax)

Somewhat true. But ... it's also true for Windows. Did you see the post above? https://github.com/GoofGarage/Win11Clean. It's a very long list of instructions just to get the think installed in a way that keeps most of Microsoft's fingers out of your pockets and while keeping the familiar Windows interface. But if you follow it you will have a non-standard install, and later some overnight upgrade will break it.

Linux is closer to being a generally accessible OS than ever before, especially with Valve pushing it as a 1st class platform for gaming.

A desktop environment like KDE is a fully modern, integrated desktop even down to being able to use KDE Connect to use your smart phone from your desktop.

You mentioned hating Ubuntu and 3 other distros, but really the fundamental differences between distros is mostly how they package software, and how frequently they downstream new software. Install something like Pop_OS, never touch a terminal and move on.

> But I have no interest in learning/memorizing commands.

Of course they're UX issues that could be improved, especially with Canonical trying to push Snap on people, but I'm more inclined to believe many peoples' exasperation with the Linux desktop experience is really due to long-standing familiarity with Windows. The things you "have to learn" as an enthusiast coming from the Windows ecosystem are things that by its conventions are done through graphical interfaces. Which doesn't make them easier, you've just already memorized them.

Yes, correct, exactly.

So I need someone to make an OS with the longstanding windows user in mind. Using a GUI absolutely is easier. I need drop down lists and check boxes. Mouse hover tips and visual menus. Not some cryptographic string of command line arguments that I am futilely copy+pasting from some random web page.

It's easier to you because you're already familiar with it. But as someone that hasn't regularly used Windows in many years, I find performing administrative tasks and any kind of troubleshooting via Windows's opaque graphical interfaces to be a very manual and nail-pulling experience.

Additionally, graphical interfaces have a lot of downsides, as Microsoft themselves has discovered as evidenced by how over the past couple years they've been promoting PowerShell as a way to automate administrative tasks on Windows themselves and allow powerusers to pass around PowerShell invocations for quick fixes in the same way users of every other OS have for decades.

> Linux is extremely powerful via the command line. But I have no interest in learning/memorizing commands.

It's entirely possible to install and use Linux without touching the command line, just like with Windows. The days where command-line skills were required passed a long while back.

Hence why I added the line "great for grandmas".

> I have been on ubuntu for the past year, and hate it.

Just FYI, I use Linux exclusively on my own machines and I hate Ubuntu as well.

I suppose you want ReactOS https://reactos.org/

What about ReactOS?

ReactOS barely works...and last I knew it was at XP-level support for applications.

which version of ReactOS have you tried?

If Microsoft sold a Windows No-Bullsh*t Edition it would sell like hotcakes. The core OS is as solid as ever (it literally just gets better every year) but then they layer on all the "new" stuff and it's confusing, ugly, and buggy.

I'm not totally against change but there's a lot of change in Windows that just doesn't many sense.

Try a distro with KDE, especially a rolling release distro like opensuse tumbleweed. KDE will feel a lot more like "good" windows.

I remember people saying this about XP to Vista, then 7 to 8, then 8 to 10, now 10 to 11... If you're on 10 now then you've gone through this cycle several times already; Microsoft is slow-boiling frogs and it seems to work for them.