How do you live without tweaking win11 after installing?

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Kyouma 13 hours ago

When I see on someone's PC stock win11 UI with taskbar icons in the middle, non-disabled win11 DISGUSTING and useless context menu and enabled UAC popups I literally wanna vomit

Meanwhile me:
0. Using offline account

1. Completely and permanently disabling windows updates with github script (It's reverseble if needed) "You must update to stay secure" is a myth, windows updates can ruin your desktop, reset your settings, bring new telemetry, new bugs, ruin your SSD, ruin your important work with unexpected reboot, mostly all updates having malicious nature and no changelogs. Windows updates does not mitigate security threats, THEY ARE major security threat itself.

2. Completely disabling windows defender and firewall. Firewall is useless unless you are in corporate network, your router already doing it's job. And if you smart and vigilant enough you would never need any virus protection. I had 0 viruses since 2010.. Of course if you are dummy and can't make difference between picture and executable, I don't recommend you to disable this.

3. Disabling core isolation, it gives major performance issues, just like windows defender sometimes (Even on high-end hardware like I have)

4.Replacing stock UI with win10 UI with explorer patcher. What is this poor mindset that makes you deal with forced circumstances and aggree to be a doormat for Microsoft when your comfort is taken away? It literally takes five minutes to configure everything back the way you're used to. And oh, you can disable ugly rounded corners, btw. Square corners are goated.

5. Replacing start menu with win10 start menu (cuz it's better and replaced a desktop for me. My desktop is always clean and I don't have to minimize anything, everything is in compact start menu that utilizes free space properly, unlike ugly win11 menu)

6. Disabling "fancy" context explorer right-click menu. Old one shows everything, it was functional, no weird button alignment. It existed for 25+ years and it must remain the same. This "innovations" is only an imitation of changes to sell win11 as something new.

7. Disabling UAC popups completely, I don't need to be asked over and over to confirm I want to run anything. If I am trying to execute something, I know what I am doing.

8. Completely removing all AI features (including copilot, cortana, recall and everything else I would never allow run on my PC)

9. Debloating (OneDrive, Netflix, Teams, Office 360). No comments.

10. Display file extensions. It's a MUST have feature on every PC. You have to know what file extension you are dealing with.

11. Completely disabling TMP in BIOS after installing Windows. It's a cancer, you can google why. If something has "Trusted" in it's name it doesn't mean you can trust it.

12. Disabling all telemetry, ads, startup tips, cloud features. Reminder: Privacy settings after windows install is a 2% of real settings you don't see. There are hundred of privacy settings that aren't shown for you and you would immediately want to disable when you found out that settings are enabled without your consent.

Don't be lazy, don't just accept in silence what you see after installing windows. Everything you miss in windows 11 is still around. Everything from Windows 10 is still around and you can bring it back. Every bad news about poor privacy, telemetry and horrible AI-spy can be disabled and fixed in few minutes. Most extra things and scripts for tweaking are on popular github repositories. Everything is easy to configure and you be grateful to your future self you made your digital environment comfortable and usable, with higher accessibility and performance.

Btw: You don't have to leave from Windows 10 if you still using it. "End of Service" it's just a "fearmongering tale", it only means it would nor receive any updates. Updates that you actually don't need.
It is still compatible with any existing modern software, games and drivers. So unless you start having trouble running your favorite games, software, or drivers, it's completely fine to use - even version 22H2, which is actually the most stable and never failed me (it's from the pre-AI era, btw).

Last edited by Kyouma; 13 hours ago

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Showing 1-15 of 19 comments

ペンギン 13 hours ago

Long topic short:
Don't impose your standards on others.

You're forgetting that the majority of users are “normal users” who simply go about their daily lives with their devices and/or have to work with them. That's the basis. And the basis has neither the time, nor the interest, nor the knowledge, let alone a reason to delve into such topics. Many people only know how to turn on their device, how a handful of programs work, and that's it.

Many so-called "pro" user here on Steam and other platforms forget that too. It starts with the fact that many guides, instructions, tutorials and reference works only exist in English. This remains a barrier for many individuals.

Therefore, it is actually the duty of people who know more or are more knowledgeable to support others with their knowledge. No matter how annoying it can sometimes be.

Greetings at this point especially to countless Linux and programming forums, which also often ignore the basics and simply start in the middle since decades. It even goes so far that inexperienced newcomers to a subject are literally scared away.

And let's be honest: Try searching for something on the internet these days. First, you'll find forums with endless posts that don't help you. You'll find numerous sites that copy each other without helping you. You'll find sites where people are arguing with each other, but you often won't find what you're looking for. On top of that, there's advertising and all kinds of other crap.

Last edited by ペンギン; 13 hours ago

rawWwRrr 13 hours ago

There are a few good de-bloat/de-spy Windows 11 with a few clicks. I don't go all whole hog like OP, but I do make sure to have a local account despite Microsoft's effort to convince me otherwise, I do one post install update, then I load up O&O ShutUp and turn nearly everything off.

Thermal Lance 13 hours ago

Given what I actually need to do with a computer. I did away with Windows in favor of Linux. That was my solution.

It's not a perfect solution given that sometimes I have to do a couple tweaks/fix here and there to keep the ball rolling. But, I simply cannot trust Microsoft anymore in any capacity. Even with all the debloating tools under the sun.

Kyouma 13 hours ago

Originally posted by ペンギン:
Long topic short:
You're forgetting that the majority of users are “normal users” who simply go about their daily lives with their devices and/or have to work with them. That's the basis. And the basis has neither the time, nor the interest, nor the knowledge, let alone a reason to delve into such topics. Many people only know how to turn on their device, how a handful of programs work, and that's it.

Many so-called "pro" user here on Steam and other platforms forget that too. It starts with the fact that many guides, instructions, tutorials and reference works only exist in English. This remains a barrier for many individuals.

Therefore, it is actually the duty of people who know more or are more knowledgeable to support others with their knowledge. No matter how annoying it can sometimes be.

Greetings at this point especially to countless Linux and programming forums, which also often ignore the basics and simply start in the middle since decades. It even goes so far that inexperienced newcomers to a subject are literally scared away.

I aggree, it's impossible to make everyone willing to make some advanced steps of tweaking their digital environment. Most of them basically don't care.
But still there are many users who want to do it, but hesitating, waiting for nudge or just don't know that you can actually make things better (Even if they do 20-25% from my list above it will drastically increase user experience).
Many people still read news and think everything Microsoft do is permanent. Like "Windows 11 has built-in AI that will always spy on you and make screenshots of everything you do". Uhm.. like... no, it's not like that, you can remove it completely (Even if Microsoft don't want you to do that). And everything else is possible to be changed in a good way too.

Last edited by Kyouma; 13 hours ago

Eagle_of_Fire 12 hours ago

Originally posted by Kyouma:
How do you live without tweaking win11 after installing?

I've literally done that with every single Windows installation in my whole life. So my answer to this is kind of... Duh?

Yes, Windows 11 is even worse than the previous instalments. That is true. But anybody even remotely computer savy is going to go thru their whole installation the first time they start up their computer...

Cray 8 hours ago

Originally posted by Thermal Lance:
Given what I actually need to do with a computer. I did away with Windows in favor of Linux. That was my solution.

It's not a perfect solution given that sometimes I have to do a couple tweaks/fix here and there to keep the ball rolling. But, I simply cannot trust Microsoft anymore in any capacity. Even with all the debloating tools under the sun.

Same. Wasn't even expecting to use Linux for gaming, just tried it out of curiosity. Worked so well that I'd rather deal with a few tweaks and game fixes than babysit an OS I can't trust.

Tried win11 and it was.. bad. realized that no matter how much I turned everything off, either windows update would re-enable it, or install something new in its place, or if I turned windows update off, some update would eventually be 'required' for games or software to work by dependency. Win7 was the last decent windows.

It's not a desktop system any more, it's a "sell everything as a service for infinite revenue and milk the user for free data to sell or train 'ai' systems on" piece of software that edges ever closer to behaving like malware.

Meanwhile Linux just keeps getting better and better. And my friends on windows wake up one day and find their personal files have been automatically uploaded to microsoft because they missed a checkbox and didn't disable onecloud, which installed via an autoupdate while they were asleep, and proceeded to move whatever it felt should be "in the cloud".

Or worry about when the 'Recall' feature taking constant screenshots of the desktop and storing them in cloudspace becomes a default opt-out & bake-in.

I appreciate OP's position - better to handcuff it if you're gonna use it, and it's odd how few do that, but for me the solution was simple: delete windows.

Last edited by Cray; 8 hours ago

Zefar 6 hours ago

Originally posted by Kyouma:
1. Completely and permanently disabling windows updates with github script (It's reverseble if needed) "You must update to stay secure" is a myth, windows updates can ruin your desktop, reset your settings, bring new telemetry, new bugs, ruin your SSD, ruin your important work with unexpected reboot, mostly all updates having malicious nature and no changelogs. Windows updates does not mitigate security threats, THEY ARE major security threat itself.

Just stay on Win10 if you're gonna block all updates on Win11.
Because what would be the point of moving to a new OS if you're just going to block all of the updates?
It's counter productive.

Also the updates breaking something is incredible rare. Even when it happens it only happens to a small minority that does very special things with their hardware.
The SSD problem was only found by some tech youtubers doing stress tests.

Originally posted by Kyouma:
7. Disabling UAC popups completely, I don't need to be asked over and over to confirm I want to run anything. If I am trying to execute something, I know what I am doing.

The UAC is literally a security feature and the reason it keeps asking is to be on the safe side.

Last edited by Zefar; 6 hours ago

Mr. Smiles 6 hours ago

I just play games, I aint got time for tweaking my OS like its 2005 or something, it doesn't matter.

Eagle_of_Fire 6 hours ago

Originally posted by Mr. Smiles:
I just play games, I aint got time for tweaking my OS like its 2005 or something, it doesn't matter.

Meanwhile you could boost your computer efficiency by several factors of magnitude... But you can always buy more ram instead, right? Not like it matter...

Mr. Smiles 6 hours ago

Originally posted by Eagle_of_Fire:
Originally posted by Mr. Smiles:
I just play games, I aint got time for tweaking my OS like its 2005 or something, it doesn't matter.
Meanwhile you could boost your computer efficiency by several factors of magnitude... But you can always buy more ram instead, right? Not like it matter...

Exactly, it doesn't matter. I don't even need more RAM, most of the games i play on a regular basis are over 10 years old.

But no, i get it, gotta get those frames. 140+ or bust.

#10

Eagle_of_Fire 6 hours ago

Originally posted by Mr. Smiles:
Originally posted by Eagle_of_Fire:
Meanwhile you could boost your computer efficiency by several factors of magnitude... But you can always buy more ram instead, right? Not like it matter...
Exactly, it doesn't matter. I don't even need more RAM, most of the games i play on a regular basis are over 10 years old.

But no, i get it, gotta get those frames. 140+ or bust.

I'm not of the FPS mindset. I'm a strategy/simulation guy myself. Which, ironically, mean that yes I want my CPU to be hyper optimised because every single game of this nature is eventually going to bottleneck your CPU and make you lose frames.

Different battlefield, same battle.

#11

Ben Lubar 6 hours ago

Meanwhile, I installed Debian Linux and... that's it. It just works. It doesn't spy on me or show me ads or try to get me to use generative AI.

Haven't had a single game I wanted to play not work on Linux, either.

#12

Mr. Smiles 6 hours ago

Originally posted by Eagle_of_Fire:
Originally posted by Mr. Smiles:
Exactly, it doesn't matter. I don't even need more RAM, most of the games i play on a regular basis are over 10 years old.

But no, i get it, gotta get those frames. 140+ or bust.
I'm not of the FPS mindset. I'm a strategy/simulation guy myself. Which, ironically, mean that yes I want my CPU to be hyper optimised because every single game of this nature is eventually going to bottleneck your CPU and make you lose frames.

Different battlefield, same battle.

It's mostly that I just don't have the energy for this that I did when I was in my 20s. It runs my games, it runs my software, it doesn't chug like Vista or Win8.

Is it bloated? Sure.

Does it affect what I'm trying to do? No.

Do I care about telemetry or it spying on me? Not for over a decade.

The point of the OP was essentially judging people who for any reason didn't tailor win11 to be as slick and slim as possible.

I'm just saying that it doesn't bother me while I'm playing Rimworld, NWN, Warframe, etc.

#13

Zefar 6 hours ago

Originally posted by Eagle_of_Fire:
Originally posted by Mr. Smiles:
Exactly, it doesn't matter. I don't even need more RAM, most of the games i play on a regular basis are over 10 years old.

But no, i get it, gotta get those frames. 140+ or bust.
I'm not of the FPS mindset. I'm a strategy/simulation guy myself. Which, ironically, mean that yes I want my CPU to be hyper optimised because every single game of this nature is eventually going to bottleneck your CPU and make you lose frames.

Different battlefield, same battle.

At most you might get a 1-2 FPS difference by removing "bloat" on Win11.

Bloat was a thing of the past when CPUs couldn't handle everything. These days? It's a none issue.

#14

Eagle_of_Fire 4 hours ago

Originally posted by Zefar:
Originally posted by Eagle_of_Fire:
I'm not of the FPS mindset. I'm a strategy/simulation guy myself. Which, ironically, mean that yes I want my CPU to be hyper optimised because every single game of this nature is eventually going to bottleneck your CPU and make you lose frames.

Different battlefield, same battle.

At most you might get a 1-2 FPS difference by removing "bloat" on Win11.

Bloat was a thing of the past when CPUs couldn't handle everything. These days? It's a none issue.

Keep telling yourself that. Meanwhile I've literally won arguments simply by test running my PC against "impossible saves" of games and literally outperformed PCs years more recent than mine that would "supposedly" leave my rig in the dust...

#15

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Date Posted: 3 Nov @ 3:48pm

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