msmgtoolkit

Seems to be just fine (for my use). I wouldn't recommend it to everyone of course. If things break down the road I'll just reinstall. I've been running since initial W10 release without issue however. YMMV.

There are issues such as no more start menu search because of removing cortana. It's all about what you personally need.

Thanks, but it's just a throwaway user name I won't use after this post.

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.

I simply use MSMG Toolkit over at MDL forums, remove all the packages I don't want prior to installing from ISO.

No cortana (warning: no start menu searching either), no modern apps (you can intergrate calc.exe), no store, defender, remove alot of telemetry, one drive, etc.