How do you “clean” Windows from all bloatware?
I have recently got a Windows laptop which I will use almost exclusively for WSL and the Browser. Both work fine in Windows 11, but the sheer amount of side bloatware I see around in menus etc.. and the "ads" are crazy, and they really annoy me.
For those of you in a similar position, may I ask if you know of a program or script that removes from Windows everything that can be removed, except thing necessary for proper functioning of WSL and web browsing? The goal is to ultimately have as fast and slim a Windows as possible.
Many thanks
Support windows for enough end users and you'll never touch a debloat script. They invariably work fine until some update breaks something, and the hobbiests that promote these hack jobs also promote simply rebuilding your machine which I have zero time for these days.
Install a clean version of Windows and upgrade to the Professional SKU. Please don't follow any of the rest of the advice in this post about installing IoT/LTSC versions or running shady debloater scripts.
This isn’t meant to be a trite or joke post, but I gave up years ago. It’s a losing battle. Every year, your mitigations will lose a little more ground. Some things wholly cannot be removed, some things will come back during the next update. If you ever need to reinstall, you’ll spend tons of time completing the same bloat removal steps over and over.
It’s not clear what Microsoft’s current strategy is for the Windows OS, but they don’t seem to be trying to attract customers.
If you can stand to wipe the system and install from scratch, grab a recent ISO from https://uupdump.net/ and then use NTLite to remove all the junk and add WSL. There are some decent built-in presets, but you may want to pay for a license to get absolutely everything.
OoC ... why do you run Windows at all if you will use it "almost exclusively for WSL and the Browser"?
A Mac or Linux laptop sounds like a much better fit - form that very brief intro line :)
Not to be "that guy", but if you're only using Windows for the Linux subsystem and web browser, why not use Linux to boot?
Use IoT version of the OS instead. It's quite difficult to remove some of the bloat from mainstream versions even having Windows debloater scripts or O&O's tools because of how deeply they're intertwined into the system. Removing some unneeded stuff sometimes causes either OS functionality or updateability to break too.
The ability to remove some of that from the home edition can be made less restricted using O&O's ShutUp 10 [1] which also works on 11. This can also make Windows less chatty and leak less data.
There are some de-bloating scripts on github but each of them comes with some risk of breaking the machine. I don't know of one that is entirely free of risk, perhaps someone else here does.
[1] - https://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10
I recommend Windows 10 LTSC or Windows 11 Education, which is the most efficient available version of Windows 11.
It's not exactly a debloater, but https://www.bcuninstaller.com/ will help you to get rid of majority of bloatware. It's not automatic unfortunately, you need to know what you're doing.
If you click to bring up the "start menu", you can then right-click on the "live" boxes that come up with the start menu and remove them. This doesn't remove the bloatware, but does remove the distracting crap that Microsoft is pushing in your face.
>the "ads" are crazy
Currently it is possible to turn these ads off via Settings -> Privacy and Security -> (four ad-related toggles).
Rumor has it they won't be avoidable in the future.
So I'm forced to conclude, the only way to remove bloatware completely from a computer is remove Windows itself.
Use windows 10 LTSC and don't listen to the guy saying not to listen to people saying to use W10LTSC. I'm using it on my framework 12th Gen which "doesn't support windows 10" and it works fine.
I really love using Windows. I spend a good amount of time getting it perfect for me then image it. Alot of tools listed in this thread are good as well as Group policy changes. It can get pretty close. Using choco also helps.I redo my Window environment ever 6 months tho. I'm starting to consider something else if I can make it work tho.
Running Win11 Enterprise myself, I just disable annoying things from group policies and settings, then uninstall bloat with Winget. Clean enough for me and nothing breaks.
Look into windows configuration designer