Microsoft will let you uninstall more built-in Win 11 apps soon for less bloat | Hacker News Reader

Microsoft will let you uninstall more built-in Win 11 apps soon for less bloat

theverge.com

45 pointsDemiGuru66 comments

Open articleView on HN

Why should they have to let me? It's my computer.

Your computer, their os…

My first thought was similar:

My, how gracious of them to allow me to do something on my own freaking machine.

Was their generosity for gifting you candy crush turned away?

Yes. It's a generous gift in the same way that it's a generous gift if my neighbor tosses his garbage into my yard.

Yes, similar to how I turn down free heroin.

Their perspective on this point is diametrically different.

There used to be an icon on the desktop titled "My Computer". It's titled "This PC" now. That seems a sufficient summary of how MS/Windows views things.

Or just an acknowledgement that in today's world a user has many computers and devices, not just one. I hate baseless speculation.

I have way more than one machine. They're all my computers, though.

When you call something "My Computer" it immediately springs to mind "which one"? Whereas "This PC" is more straightforward.

It's subtle, and wouldn't make a difference to you or I. But to your average every day user I could see the second language being better.

I think it was more of a joke

You mean the My Computer that rebooted for update whenever it wanted even if I had unsaved documents open?

Bill Gates places his hand heavily on your shoulder.

Do you feel in charge?

Yeah, I pointed that out to someone the other day. "Hunh, I didn't notice that" is what I got back.

I'm seeing a pattern on HN. Whenever Apple comes up it's "they don't allow it to protect me and I'm so thankful", whenever Microsoft comes up it's "they don't allow it, fuck them".

Probably from different people, but nevertheless.

Indeed, the double standards are painful.

It's not double standards if it's different people.

I can't exactly say that I'm grateful that Apple don't allow me to delete Chess.app. Apple does a lot of stupid stings too, and I'm not making any excuses for them.

> Probably from different people

Definitely from different people.

I'd really like to uninstall Edge and never be pestered about switching to it as the default browser ever again.

LTSC

Windows LTSC is the version of Windows with all the cruft that people want removed, removed.

No autoreboot, no MS store, no onedrive, no ads.

(It's like what Windows use to be back in the day)

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/windows-it-pro-blog/w...

Does Windows 11 LTSC already exists?

From the article I linked to:

> "Today we're announcing that the next Windows LTSC releases will be available in the second half of 2024"

It exists, but only unless if your an enterprise house or have some sort of contract with Microsoft.

Sure. Now if you could get MS to sell you LTSC...

You could always sail the seven seas.

And if you feel guilty, just go buy a copy of Pro (or whatever the top version is) and run LTSC anyways. Not like with enough work you couldn't strip Pro down to an LTSC equivalent.

Windows Embedded was promoted as a way to use Windows in environments were "windows-isms" (update hijacking, nags, ads, spontaneous deactivation, etc) could have catastrophic consequences due to downtime and difficulty of mouse+keyboard access. Microsoft broke the contract. Informally, at least, I'm sure their lawyers made sure the fine print was on their side.

One day I turned on my Windows 7 Embedded oscilloscope and got hit with a full-screen ad for Windows 11 that could only be dismissed by mouse. In my case I was able to just attach a mouse, but I've seen Windows Embedded used in environments where that would have been difficult and time-consuming (USB ports hidden or even glued to prevent physical access).

Point is: Microsoft will happily sell you a special anti-abuse pass and then abuse you anyway. Be warned.

No Edge?

I wish Apple would let me uninstall Messages, News, and iTunes, and all their other first party software that I never use. Heck, I'd settle for them not running on their own. Apparently they are all load-bearing software, and removing them would cripple the OS.

But Chess.app is the keystone of the entire system!

They're so full of shit. The OS worked fine before without all that. It's their choice to build it that way. It's shitty practice to do that IMO. And most of all it's shitty to do to your users.

This article and video were pretty helpful on eliminating all the Windows 11 bloat/cruft from the start:

https://christitus.com/windows-11-perfect-install/

It:

- Bypasses the installation of most of the junk apps using a non-messy region "hack".

- Bypasses Microsoft account requirements.

- Removes telemetry.

- Gets rid of Edge.

- None of it is too janky, and yeah, I did audit that GUI PowerShell app before running it.

Cortana is going EoL in the next few months so being able to uninstall it is not surprising

And even so, what are the odds that other apps will just end up back on the OS after some period of time? It's part of the Windows experience, uninstalling the garbage only to see it come back in an update a couple months later.

I wonder if this is any different than the PowerShell "Remove-AppxPackage" commands that already were able to uninstall many default apps. Maybe it's just a nice UI on top of the existing functionality.

Great. Now let me do the same for all telemetry services. Also patch out the mandatory "microsoft account" while your at it.

A lot of the telemetry can be disabled with tools like O&O ShutUp. It's not perfect and it'd be nice to have a built-in option, but at least it's something. I think you can also bypass the Microsoft account requirement by installing without internet access.

I was able to remove all the bloat from windows a lot easier. Switched to Linux for my daily driver.

W11 is absolute garbage. I hate it - I have two identical gaming laptops, one Windows 10& one is 11.

The 11 crashes a lot, overheats and then on top of it ms has integrated ads I to the OS... And tying your login to outlook.com should be illegal :-)

The w10 machine never over heats, doesn't crash and doesn't have as much as embedded - but it still ties to outlook.com no bueno

Why do you keep Windows 11 on that laptop?

I'd think that cloning your Windows 10 image would be an improvement.

Windows 10 ist EoL very soon in 2024.

Laughs in LTSC

Fortunately the 2021 LTSC version EOLs 2027-01-12, so it should still be possible to use Windows 10 beyond 2024 assuming the user is okay with the steps needed to run LTSC.

It's been a while since I looked into using LTSC.

Are the two options basically pirate it or pay huge sums of money?

Because I dont currently have enough swap space to switch the data/organize the data to make it easy to clone...

I basically have to have a MANY ssd de-dupe capability btwn my machines and apps and various data...

This is why I was hoping that an earlier announcement of AI enable desktop search could also auto-categorize organize de-dupe my stuffs...

so apathy? Daunting process? Lack of tools? climate change (its too hot to do brain work)?

What specs do the laptops have? Windows 11 has higher requirements than Windows 10.

Anecdotally, on my not-officially-supported intel 3rd gen core, win11 has been a much snappier and all-around more pleasant experience than Windows 10.

I'm not saying it's a great OS or anything, I only use it for games and Adobe stuff. But it almost made me consider using it for other things.

Flagship HP Omen Gaming laptop 3060ti' rtx' 5700 cpu

You could try some of the tools to debloat and reduce telemetry in Windows 11, like O&O ShutUp and BloatyNosy.

I'm running 11 on unsupported hardware that previously ran 10 fine, and so far no stability or performance issues.

Is it really fair to blame the software for overheating? Doesn't your motherboard control the fan speeds?

Some users are just clueless and need to vent on something they hate rather than on the thing that's actually causing the issue. If their car doesn't start in the morning it's Window's fault.

You missed the part where I have TWO PHYSICALLY IDENTICAL Machines - and YES I control the fans, but W11 turns them on when doing stupid shit like running chrome to watch videos...

I can swap the SSDs between the two machines (which I have done, multiple times) - its W11 - not my inability to manage a laptop with a 40 year career in IT..

The you must be the unluckiest person ever to have the only documented case of W11 causing overheating.

At home and work we all switched to W11 from W10 and no such HW problems occurred over W10.

Have you done a clean OS reinstall off official USB ISO? Most likely you have some rogue background process hammering your CPU. I had something similar on a Dell on Win 10 years before. Can't remember what it was.

Why do you control the fans when the motherboard has a built in temperature sensor that will control them for you? Windows 11 consumes a standard interface like ACPI/PECI and uses that to collect system data.

MSFT does have an article for people complaining about this issue, the accepted answer is updating your bios drivers/firmware.

>Why do you control the fans when the motherboard has a built in temperature sensor that will control them for you?

To turn them off when they turn on when they shouldnt. I thought that was obv.

EDIT : -- but the moboo SHOULD NOT BE GETTING FUCKING SMOKING HOT when browsing FN YOUTUBE (again::: THE SAME FN HARDWARE)

It's far from obvious because the amount of heat generated inside of a laptop is going to require constant airflow. The idle temperature of a CPU is 86 to 104 which is always going to be warm and browsers use significant amount of resources and even more so when they're playing video. There is never a time when your fans should be off, ever. Even liquid cooled CPUs require airflow to dissipate heat.

The fan sped of your laptop is controlled by the controller on the motherboard which ahs its own firmware, not by windows. Yes your laptops may be the same model, but oine might have different thermal paste application, more dust, etc.

Or on your Win11 install you have something messed up that maybe messes with your HW acceleration when watching youtube, who knows, you haven't really provided any valuable diagnostic info other than "my laptop overheats". Have you tried a clean Win install?

You must not be aware of the fact that you can adjust fan settings in the nvdia apps?

I'm not convinced this is actually a W11 problem, but the OS absolutely can and probably should be involved in controlling fans these days.

I honestly noticed zero day to day changes when I moved my PC from Windows 10 to 11. No less stable, no more performance issues, nothing. Your laptop overheating makes me think it's a lemon.

Same here, except for new defaults that are infuriating (notably the impossibility to ungroup icons in the taskbar).

Otherwise it is the same product for me.

> ...ms has integrated ads I to the OS...

Who would have thunk, ChromeOS, an OS from an advertising company, would have less ads than an OS from Microsoft?

I know many are still using Windows for a host of reasons, and it feels great to be able to have unhitched my wagon from Microsoft. For months now I just use GNU/Linux, thanks to two things: there's a plugin for Calibre that obviates the need for Adobe Digital Editions (which I was having trouble getting to work on Linux, possibly due to my own ignorance), and giving up videogaming (some multiplayer games use anticheat software that doesn't play well with Linux, hence sticking with Windows. My friends and I are adjusting to other ways to stay in touch at a distance. They've been supportive, as gaming has been an unhealthy escape for me for decades and I hadn't told them until recently). Now I have more time to read, communicate, feel balanced and less distracted, and boast on social media (HN...) about how good it feels to have ditched Windows ;)

It seems like the EU DSA and DMA would also apply to Microsoft.

Could this be in preparation for when the laws come into force in early 2024?

How generous ...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com