De-Bloated Windows 11 Build Runs on 2GB of RAM | Hacker News Reader

De-Bloated Windows 11 Build Runs on 2GB of RAM

tomshardware.com

25 pointsnixass10 comments

I think its a shame to see Windows 11 (and some extension Win 10) become such sub-par OSes because of the focus to ship "connected" features rather than just focusing on pure UX.

I get that Microsoft have to recoup their investment but I really want there to be a bonafide alternative to Mac OS even though there are some Linux Distros that provide a close second. Just with last I heard there was drama with the ElementaryOS team- I don't see much hope on that front anymore.

Windows lost its soul years ago back when 8 was released. After seeing that I knew it’s days were numbered and I still believe it. Until Microsoft step up with a competitive hardware lineup to directly take on apple, they will continue to have to resort to trying to upsell people just trying to use an OS to achieve their daily tasks. I can’t decide whether it’s more stupid or desperate.

> After seeing that I knew it’s days were numbered and I still believe it.

They have a very good marketing department and very convincing lobbyists. I would like to use Linux at work but Windows comes with the company's laptop.

"Windows lost its soul years ago"

It never had one. Period.

The download is directly from archive.org. Is there an official site or is a member of archive.org maintaining this? It would be nice if there was a git repo with the scripts / tools used to build the image from a standard W11 iso.

Incredible. I remember running NT 4 on 16 megs of ram on a Pentium 60.

The Windows kernel has a system to decide which parts, that only matter during boot, can be discarded and which parts can be unloaded safely when memory is tight. This saves megabytes!

My brother-in-law just built a gaming PC for his son, and asked me about de-bloat and ad-removal scripts for Windows 11. My knowledge is sadly a bit out of date. I’d love some suggestions.

My suggestion is don't.

Microsoft has made Windows obnoxious, but many of those scripts degrade security (by design) and may break features consumers depend on. Most of Windows' annoyances can be disabled in their provided Settings UI. If someone isn't knowledgeable enough to do this by hand, they shouldn't be blindly running scripts they cannot revert and that there is no support for.

There are articles like this one that guide you though the heavy hitters for bad settings:

https://beebom.com/change-windows-11-settings/

The great thing about this is that you can read what these settings do for yourself, there is official support for them, and you can revert them just as easily. In future Windows Updates you also won't have "unusual" things occurring since, again, this is officially supported.

No doubt I'll get dumped on for this, but realistically people online suggesting running scripts that turn off features like Desktop SmartScreen, Edge SmartScreen, Windows Update(!), File History, Windows Search, blocking random domains in the hosts file, or these nebulous "performance tweaks"[0] which I could write paragraphs about the problems alone.

[0] https://github.com/LeDragoX/Win-Debloat-Tools/blob/main/src/...

Uninstall the default fluff apps via settings and find the settings for ads in start and Lock Screen to disable them. Stay away from such scripts unless someone who understands how to feed it love and care when it turns out one of those settings or components was needed is going to be the main user. If that’s the kid then let them figure it out, they’ll need to break things a few times to do so though.

If you’re going through all of settings looking for things be careful of the privacy section. E.g. disabling microphone access globally and thinking that means “prompt for use” is one of the more common “why doesn’t voice chat” work issues.

If you insist on the tool route though look at O&O shut up 10++ (works with 11 as the name implies). It’ll have a safer default set of changes you can use.

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