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Ask HN: How do you “clean” Windows from all bloatware?

by theanonymousone·3y ago·46 comments·view on hn ↗
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

46 comments
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.
What's wrong with LTSC? W11 pro has tons of ads still, how do you deal with those?
Shady debloater scripts?

Just inspect them.

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.
What's the advantage of that site over downloading direct from MS?
They ultimately do come from MS. It's easier to navigate, in my experience, and you usually get a more recent build than the MS tools start with.
What is NTLite?
https://www.ntlite.com/

It lets you customize the installer to install only the components you want, and to set the settings how you want. You can have a completely automated installation that has all the ads and other garbage turned off from the first time you log in.

So it gives you a custom unattend.xml?
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 :)

> Maybe because some drivers don't work, plus the fact that we want to keep this one Windows machine at home, for cases of Windows only software (e.g. old book-companion CDs).

Plus maybe to run an experiment?

"Maybe"?

You're the OP, and don't even know why you want to do this?

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?
This doesn't sound like a (company issued) work laptop but I worked somewhere where even if you needed linux for your job you had to use WSL because of IT policy.

He doesn't mention it but using Office natively is another good reason to have access to Windows.

I have two machines, a Linux laptop strictly for developing and a macbook for admin. If you had to have one though I can see why Windows + WSL would be a viable option (if you could get all the crapware out as asked)

And in any event, he wants to know if it's possible, he wasn't asking for OS advice.

If it's a company-issued device and simply wiping the existing OS and installing Linux isn't an option, wiping the existing OS and installing an IoT or Enterprise version of Windows instead, or running a debloater script, is likely also not an option.
This ^

Try Fedora Kionite or openSUSE Kalpa if you want something stable, or Clear Linux for absoolute max performance.

But to answer your question, Github is a good place to look for up-to-date windows cleaners

Maybe because some drivers don't work, plus the fact that we want to keep this one Windows machine at home, for cases of Windows only software (e.g. old book-companion CDs).
> Maybe because some drivers don't work

I find that unlikely

> we want to keep this one Windows machine at home, for cases of Windows only software (e.g. old book-companion CDs).

Do you have other classes of software that targets Windows that you'd like to run? "Old book-companion CDs" will almost certainly run fine with WINE. WINE excels (heh) at running older software. Most new software runs fine as well, but that is where things become less certain.

> I find that unlikely

Nvidia wants to have a word with you about gaming.

> but that is where things become less certain.

And this is another reason.

> Nvidia wants to have a word with you about gaming.

What year is this comment from?

> And this is another reason.

How? It's the same reason they stated. I just wanted to get specifics from them.

I'm not a first hand expert in this, but a highly accomplished friend who is, holds the solid opinion that modern Linux (with "WINE" of course - a free, trivial install) is, ironically!, better at running old Windows software than modern Windows is. And in my limited experience, I agree.

Your driver issue might be a dealbreaker, depending upon what they are, and how important that thing is to you, when weighed up against the long term burden of Windows everyday inefficiencies and limitations.

I can only echo what some others are saying when they recommend Linux. Most of us have ultimately found that the more efficient computing life lies there. Life is indeed better when you don't have the constant micro-anxieties of bloat and malware and commercials and $costs accompanying your every computing minute, and for me personally, if all I had to do to get that was to change a hardware device or two (to something suitably driver-compatible), and eschew the once-in-a-blue-moon running of old MS CDs on actual Windows (and use WINE instead, which, as mentioned, may actually do it better), then I'd find it a pretty easy calculation.

I can understand wanting to use Windows for better driver support or just to have an extra OS laying around.

That being said, I've run a lot of pre-2000s software in DOSBox and WINE with very little trouble. If you're unsure if Linux will support your use-case, just try it; live Linux can boot from USB, install WINE and test programs all without touching your hard drive. It's worth a shot most of the time.

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.
What is that? Does it also run WSL?
Google Windows IoT. And yes, it supports WSL.
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

Yeah, O&O is pretty good as it's mostly just setting Microsoft-provided policies to disable or hide things, rather than removing them.
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.
I've used this script for every new install of Windows and it makes the experience quite a bit better: https://github.com/Sycnex/Windows10Debloater .

17k stars on GitHub so lots of people agree.

I have used this with various Windows 10 machines, I usually load the script in notepad++ and hand edit until it does only what I want for safety but it's a pretty good script for Windows 10. I probably won't upgrade to Windows 11 until a reasonable cleaning script appears - and maybe one that fixes the context menus too, they are all useless in Windows 11.
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.

I use Open Shell (fork of Classic Shell) as a replacement to original Start Menu. This gives me full control over what appears in start menu - no results from internet, animated tiles, etc (I am on Win 10 though, from what I read the Win 11 is supported, but not yet officially [1]). It could be a solution to the ads appearing in start menu.

[1] https://github.com/Open-Shell/Open-Shell-Menu/issues/1564

For ads and online-dependent annoyware a third-party firewall works too.
The ads in start menu search results (insiders channel) are what drove me to chainge my primary boot to Linux a bit over a year ago... I've booted windows twice since.
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.
Could you share what kind of group policy changes you make?
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.
I always liked this for Win 10

https://github.com/southpaw5271/BeachedWhale

https://atlasos.net was on HN recently, if you can reinstall.
Look into windows configuration designer