Microsoft Making More of the Windows 10 Built-In Apps Removable (arstechnica.com) 82
With the latest Windows 10 build 18262, Microsoft is allowing you to remove apps such as Mail, Calendar, Movies & TV, and the Groove Music app. Ars Technica reports: The ability to remove these apps doesn't really mean much in terms of disk space or convenience, as none of them are very big. The move may be of more interest to corporate deployments; an organization that has standardized on Outlook, for example, might want to remove the Mail and Calendar apps to reduce user confusion.
Elsewhere, the new build also updates Task Manager; an optional column in the Details tab will show which applications handle mixed DPI systems and what API level they use for that support. Microsoft is also planning, but has not yet enabled, a new Windows troubleshooter. This will examine diagnostic data and automatically perform any fixes or reconfigurations that appear to be necessary.
Elsewhere, the new build also updates Task Manager; an optional column in the Details tab will show which applications handle mixed DPI systems and what API level they use for that support. Microsoft is also planning, but has not yet enabled, a new Windows troubleshooter. This will examine diagnostic data and automatically perform any fixes or reconfigurations that appear to be necessary.
Wake me up when they make telemetry removable (Score:5, Insightful)
And automatic updates.
Re: (Score:2)
You'll be sleeping forever.
Re: (Score:2)
Personal fanboy, wee.
Re: (Score:2)
To disable updates, you could check "Metered Internet" and "Airplane Mode" and keep them checked.
This seems to keep updates away from my tablet. But I don't have WiFi enabled much on it otherwise anyway...
Re: (Score:2)
Same here. It is _my_ machine, not theirs.
Re:Wake me up when they make telemetry removable (Score:4)
Not really, actually it gets funnier and funnier with every incarnation of their "hey look, we made Windows better" spiel. MS announcements are more and more like Soviet propaganda, announcing and parading out achievements nobody gives a fuck about while failing to address what people actually care about.
Re: (Score:2)
So I guess the probe is still jammed right up in their for those used by Windows 10. Forced updates, forced ads, forced data mine, forced applications, forced searching of you not the internet and free access to delete anything they want to at any time they want to. Extra special added feature, customised windows compulsory updates, so that Fed probe can be inserted at any time with just a letter, fuck your rights, even your firmware written over.
Re: (Score:2)
That said, it's true it's a bit ridiculous since we shoud've been able to do this from the start.
Re: (Score:2)
Scroll up a bit, with a few powershell commands you could remove all those apps (and a few more that MS probably lets you remove in another "feature upgrade" in a few months) since long before this "new feature".
What's really sad is that today a "new feature" means you can get rid of something that's useless rather than really getting some additional functionality you would actually like...
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
ditch the whole UWP idea entirely for all anybody cares, HTA with new branding is still the design failure it always was.
You're thinking of Electron - Electron is HTA with new branding. It is literally nothing more than a copy of Chromium with a built in website, just like HTA.
Oh Please...PLEASE! (Score:4, Funny)
Please remove Cortana. She's a good girl, but I really don't want her in my machine.
Re: Oh Please...PLEASE! (Score:1)
Good girl? I heard she sucked!
Re:Oh Please...PLEASE! (Score:4)
She is a useless twat from hell. I really tried to use her, I tried to use her like $2 whore. Jumped through the hoops, did the voice training; my cat understand my commands better. The cat just ignores me. Hell that bitch from google is more useful. That alone tells you how bad cortana is.
Gimme the old interface! (Score:3, Interesting)
Win10's interface is an ugly mess. Let users choose the "classic" interface from Win2k and lots of complaints will vanish.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Still not quite right. Too much white rather than gray, no thick borders on each window, crappy pale scrollbars. Maybe this [fav.me] is a bit better. Or WindowBlinds, but that's commercial.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Still, a paid add-on should not be necessary to make the system look decent.
Re: (Score:2)
Unfortunately
https://tech.slashdot.org/stor... [slashdot.org]
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
Re: (Score:1)
Here ya go... [guidebookgallery.org]
Re: (Score:3)
Win10's interface is an ugly mess. Let users choose the "classic" interface from Win2k and lots of complaints will vanish.
You need to adjust your language. That is not "ugly mess" that is "innovative interface"!
Just so you know, the whole OS is also not "spyware", but a "great AI-driven agent that always knows what the user wants and thinks".
Re: (Score:1)
It's actually "butt-ugly clusterfuck of bad design" but I didn't feel like cursing. Now I do.
Re: (Score:3)
and lots of complaints will vanish
I think you're dramatically over estimating how much users give a crap.
Re: (Score:2)
xbox too! (Score:2)
translation (Score:2)
> Microsoft is also planning, but has not yet enabled, a new Windows troubleshooter.
(user runs troubleshooter)
"I see you have found a way to disable all our telemetric spyware and uninstall all the locked-in crapware... Let me "fix" that workaround for you and download/reinstall it all again"
I just want an OS (Score:5, Interesting)
I really really wish the pendulum would swing back to the operating system to just being an operating system. The kernel, drivers, window manager, desktop environment, etc., but basically no built-in apps, personal assistants, advertising, activation, or any other nonsense unless I want it.
If you want to be innovative with your OS, make it run faster and more securely. Improve your APIs and frameworks to make it easier to develop applications. Make it easier to administer devices in bulk-- and don't make it "easier to administer" by creating some complex proprietary system that anticipates that you're an enterprise customer who can afford to employ a full-time expert of your expensive suite of tools. Make is actually easy. Let owners own their computers again. Let administrators administer their computers. Stop forcing updates and burdensome "security" restrictions. The OS should serve the computer's owner's needs, not the manufacturer's business interests.
I know, I know... "Use Linux!" When someone can get hardware vendors and software developers to support it, I'll switch to it. I'd love to. I can't.
Re: (Score:2)
Probably talking about WDS/MDT/SCCM for managing and deploying Windows systems in bulk. The process for capturing a baseline for a pre-updated, pre-device-drivered, pre-configured image of Windows 7 and up is...painful, to say the least. And that's just on Windows 7 - Windows 8 introduced Audit Mode and deprecated the tools used by Windows 7 just when people were getting used to them since DISM and fighting with integrating updates in a way that doesn't see a reboot-mandating update breaking the whole cha
Re:I just want an OS (Score:4, Interesting)
To illustrate:
my previous laptop was built in 2008, it ran Windows 7. 8 GB RAM, 4 cores.
CPU% when idle: 1%
Available RAM before starting applications: >7 GB.
Current laptop built in 2018, runs W10. 8 GB RAM, 4 cores.
CPU when idle: 10-60%
Available RAM before starting applications: 4-5 GB.
Re: (Score:2)
Sad thing is that's only what Windows10 actually tells you about. There are many background tasks that Microsoft considers "idle" simple because they are "maintenance" related. Try running an old copy (version 11) of Process Explorer, and it shows you WAY more stuff going on in the background than new versions will, let alone what Task Manager does.
It's quite amusing to hear my hard drive going like mad on my Win10 evaluation machine, but Task Manager shows the hard drive is idle. When I run the old vers
Re: (Score:2)
I really really wish the pendulum would swing back to the operating system to just being an operating system. The kernel, drivers, window manager, desktop environment, etc., but basically no built-in apps, personal assistants, advertising, activation, or any other nonsense unless I want it.
I don't. The default system should have at least some form of basic functionality including internet, communication, media and back office capabilities without having to go out and customise everything.
Now what I do wish is for every default shipped thing to be removable when replaced with something else. Ideally even given the option automatically. I.e. when you assign a new default handler for all images the question Windows should be asking: "Do you want to remove the Photos app entirely or only reassign
Re: (Score:2)
Why does all that need to be installed by default? The OS needs either a web browser or an app store (or package manager), so that you can easily download the apps you need. You could even have something pop up with recommended apps when you install the OS. "We recommend you download and install these 5 applications." If you want to include it with the install media, you could still make it an optional install.
Re: (Score:2)
Why does all that need to be installed by default?
Because people expect "functional out of the box". Personally I don't mind lots of things being installed by default. I do however hate the lack of ability to remove things.
That said a nice middle ground would be lots of stuff installed by default, and a "clean" image available online for powerusers. Kind of like downloading the Ubuntu console version and then installing only what you need from there.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
As does every OEM computer maker too, because those "missing apps" are preloaded software opportunities. Right now Windows by itself does a lot of stuff which means taking a hit on pre-loaded software bundles.
But if they
To remove ALL the pesky apps (Score:1)
Here is the removal link [linux.org]
Re: (Score:1)
Just play Emacs ASCII games instead ;-)
What about removing the spyware? (Score:2)
I am really not interested before that is possible.
But Linux (Score:2, Troll)
Just pointing out, there is no such thing as a non-removable app in Linux. There might be packages that other packages depend on, sure, but in general you can configure Linux whatever way you want, with whatever applications you want. And you can find out what anything running on your machine is actually doing.
Re: (Score:3)
Just pointing out, there is no such thing as a non-removable app in Linux. There might be packages that other packages depend on, sure, but in general you can configure Linux whatever way you want, with whatever applications you want. And you can find out what anything running on your machine is actually doing.
Oh, looks like some Microsoftie doesn't want you to know that.
Re: (Score:2)
You really have no clue about hardware monitoring on Linux, not sure why you are trumpeting your ignorance.
We're getting closer to usable (Score:2)
Well, it isn't really any closer to usable, I already figured out how to remove them myself. But it will save the others who did and actually use it a few lines in the "remove the crapware again after the updates" script.
Once we get to the point where the OS is actually usable, i.e. where it doesn't waste more time telling MS when I'm on the can than it does doing the work I intend to do, we could actually talk about installing it.
Clutter (Score:2)
It means a lot in terms of clutter. That translates to a convenience issue.
Microsoft now seem to be copying Apple in terms of apps and integrating with a mobile phone (Android) based ecosystem. They seem insistent on pushing those apps in your face as tiles on the start menu, etc, which is highly irritating.
These apps have always been removable (Score:2)
There are indeed some apps that are non-removable, but the mentioned ones have always been removable using PowerShell.