Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×
Windows Microsoft Operating Systems

Windows 11 Has Made the 'Clean Windows Install' an Oxymoron (arstechnica.com) 207

An anonymous reader shares a column: You can still do a clean install of Windows, and it's arguably easier than ever, with official Microsoft-sanctioned install media easily accessible and Windows Update capable of grabbing most of the drivers that most computers need for basic functionality. The problem is that a "clean install" doesn't feel as clean as it used to, and unfortunately for us, it's an inside job -- it's Microsoft, not third parties, that is primarily responsible for the pile of unwanted software and services you need to decline or clear away every time you do a new Windows install.

The "out-of-box experience" (OOBE, in Microsoft parlance) for Windows 7 walked users through the process of creating a local user account, naming their computer, entering a product key, creating a "Homegroup" (a since-discontinued local file- and media-sharing mechanism), and determining how Windows Update worked. Once Windows booted to the desktop, you'd find apps like Internet Explorer and the typical in-box Windows apps (Notepad, Paint, Calculator, Media Player, Wordpad, and a few other things) installed. Keeping that baseline in mind, here's everything that happens during the OOBE stage in a clean install of Windows 11 22H2 (either Home or Pro) if you don't have active Microsoft 365/OneDrive/Game Pass subscriptions tied to your Microsoft account:

(Mostly) mandatory Microsoft account sign-in.
Setup screen asking you about data collection and telemetry settings.
A (skippable) screen asking you to "customize your experience."
A prompt to pair your phone with your PC.
A Microsoft 365 trial offer.
A 100GB OneDrive offer.
A $1 introductory PC Game Pass offer.

This process is annoying enough the first time, but at some point down the line, you'll also be offered what Microsoft calls the "second chance out-of-box experience," or SCOOBE (not a joke), which will try to get you to do all of this stuff again if you skipped some of it the first time. This also doesn't account for the numerous one-off post-install notification messages you'll see on the desktop for OneDrive and Microsoft 365. (And it's not just new installs; I have seen these notifications appear on systems that have been running for months even if they're not signed in to a Microsoft account, so no one is safe). And the Windows desktop, taskbar, and Start menu are no longer the pristine places they once were. Due to the Microsoft Store, you'll find several third-party apps taking up a ton of space in your Start menu by default, even if they aren't technically downloaded and installed until you run them for the first time. Spotify, Disney+, Prime Video, Netflix, and Facebook Messenger all need to be removed if you don't want them (this list can vary a bit over time).

This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Windows 11 Has Made the 'Clean Windows Install' an Oxymoron

Comments Filter:
  • by dskoll ( 99328 ) on Monday August 21, 2023 @10:29AM (#63785160) Homepage

    This is called: The natural result of greed.

    • by Roger W Moore ( 538166 ) on Monday August 21, 2023 @11:10AM (#63785316) Journal
      It's stupid interface decisions. For example, to get the taskbar on the right or left of the screen like Windows 10 to get the full vertical screen space to read documents you now have to download an OpenSource program to make that happen. To remove the stupid new context menus that force an extra click to get to the full menu you have to run a shell command etc. This is not greed just stupid UI design that adds nothing and gets in the way.

      I've also yet to find anything new that is useful in Windows 11 vs 10 so it seems like change for change's sake which is just stupid. However, by disabling much of the new crap and deleting the bloat I've now got a Windows 11 install that works well....and looks quite like Windows 10!
      • by Darinbob ( 1142669 ) on Monday August 21, 2023 @12:18PM (#63785554)

        OneDrive also. Badly designed. It doens't "back up" your files, it moves them to the cloud. But it doesn't tell you this clearly. If your network isn't super fast you will notice lag in accessing some files. If they network is down, then the files aren't local and you cannot see them! I went and carefully put some files on the local drive so they'd be available remotely away from internet access, and OneDrive copied them to the cloud and then deleted the local copies so I had no access to them when I needed them.

        A friend bitched last week that he lost a lot of files due to OneDrive. He thought he was just deleting them from the cloud but he ended up deleting the only copy.

        The Cloud is Stupid people! I've got a terabyte drive, why do I need to back up to a smaller free cloud from a notoriously unreliable company? Why do I want it in the cloud anyway? There's no purpose! I am NOT going to be sharing my source code repo with my smart phone. And why let a third party company decide what to copy and delete automatically, especially a notoriously braindead and short sighted company? And you know this notoriously unethical company is doing this just to look at your files.

        At work, OneDrive is the official backup method. I refuse to use it. I have an encrypted removeable hard drive for this. It's faster and more reliable.

        • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

          by peragrin ( 659227 )

          And why do you not have one drive setup to store copies locally? It is a setting. One we ise at work so one drive is just the sync client.

          We use one drive and sharepoint at work. Since then we atopped losing files. And no longer have to deal with local nas drive.

          Hidden bonus the admins can undo changes like file deletion if they need to.

          Now one drive and sharepoint should be intergrated better

          • by Darinbob ( 1142669 ) on Monday August 21, 2023 @01:00PM (#63785766)

            Because I didn't know what OneDrive was! I was not warned that it was going to do this. It was not the logical thing to have for a default, and as an engineer I occasionally naively assume that computer tools are logical. I did change the settings, after the fact.

            Sharepoint has a long and glorious history of being the most hated Microsoft tool, loved solely by IT admins. If you can find your files without using a bookmark, then Sharepoint has failed in its mission.

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward

        It's stupid interface decisions. . . . . This is not greed just stupid UI design that adds nothing and gets in the way.

        The biggest problem is that Microsoft has too many people and they need something to do, so you end up with all sorts of stupid changes being made. Busy work. Just changing things for sake of change. And the people in charge are obviously incompetent, or else they would never approve hundreds of stupid, pointless changes that make things worse instead of better.

        I'm not a fan of Elon Musk but he did one good thing when he bought Twitter, he got rid of thousands of people who never should have been hire

      • Moving the task bar around and/or changing either the width or height should be a trivial task, right out of the box. I know, because I use Linux with Xfce and it's a matter of a few minutes on a new installation to get it the way I want. That may not hold for Gnome, but then, I don't use it because I consider it user-hostile. YMMV, and if you love Gnome, more power to you.
      • This. They are making more and more stupid decisions about GUI elements that have already been good for a long time. As you wrote they are changing GUI elements only to say they changed and without having the slightest competence for the new element to be at least as good as the old one. It's as if the designers who knew what they were doing were retired and replaced by chimpanzees.
    • Greed?

      Windows XP Home which was shunned by many as it was really barebones used to cost $100, the Pro version cost $200.

      When was the last time you paid for a Windows license? Microsoft has allowed people to upgrade for free from Windows 7 all the way to Windows 11. Windows costs a ton to develop and maintain. Windows 10 and 11 are far more secure and advanced OS'es than any Windows release before them and come preinstalled with an AV solution which routinely rivals professional products as evidenced by

      • by dskoll ( 99328 )

        When was the last time you paid for a Windows license?

        Never. I've used Linux since 1994 and prior to that, DOS.

      • OK, these whole five or so nag screens can be dismissed in under a minute which is done once for the entire OS lifetime.

        You must be using one of the LTSB/LTSC releases.
        If you define "OS lifetime" to mean "a 5-6 month SaaS feature release cycle" then yes, you only have to click through those nag screens and configure your custom UI settings in Windows 10/11 once in the OS lifetime.

        In XP/7, there were major Service Pack releases everyone knew could radically change the OS. Accordingly, lots of people chose to decline the Service Pack roll-up installation and instead only install the individual security/stability updates until

      • by AnOnyxMouseCoward ( 3693517 ) on Tuesday August 22, 2023 @09:07AM (#63787662)
        I pay for a Windows license every time I buy a new laptop, so let's say every 3-5 years. I'm ok paying for Windows; do I love the OS, no, but it's the only OS that allows one to game properly.

        To the average user, "far more secure and advanced" means nothing at all. Does it allow me to do what I want, with minimal intrusion? Yes ok great, that's what I want. That's a great OS. A good AV bundled is a cherry on top; it's nice, but I don't expect the OS to have that since I can also install one.

        Windows 11 however feels like a spyware. It forces you to create a user account (why? you're a local OS, make me create an account if I go to your app store, not before), it forces XBox Game Bar down my throat, and then you realize it's collecting my data? I did actually pay for this software, right? Are OSes now pay-as-you-go / in-app purchases? That's a shitty experience. I don't care about the start in the middle (annoying, but minor), or small changes in interface that feels useless. What I care about is the feeling that I'm paying to be tracked. For a non-technical user, trying to disable ALL the annoyances in Win 11 is not a few min, it's closer to an hour, and then you discover new ones as you use the OS more. And you're never sure you got them all.

        I'd rather they be greedy the old fashioned way. Charge me more for the OS, leave it as an OS and not as a big data / advertising engine.
    • Ain't nothin' natural 'bout it. It's an abomination!
    • To get a 'clean' Windows today you'd need the server version.

  • You need to remember (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Casandro ( 751346 ) on Monday August 21, 2023 @10:30AM (#63785166)

    that even if you paid, you can _still_ be considered to be the product.

    • by Joce640k ( 829181 ) on Monday August 21, 2023 @11:12AM (#63785336) Homepage

      All "paying" does is prove you're gullible.

    • that even if you paid, you can _still_ be considered to be the product.

      How many people pay for Windows, though? The fees charged to computer makers to pre-install Windows are very small, and upgrades are basically unlimited (which was not the case in the past).

      What's going on here is that Microsoft has changed their business model for Windows. They used to make money by selling the OS, but they're shifting to selling services around the OS. Why they're changing their model is an interesting question, one I don't have an answer for.

  • Also updates (Score:5, Informative)

    by ceoyoyo ( 59147 ) on Monday August 21, 2023 @10:34AM (#63785186)

    There's also the two hours of downloading and installing updates.

    A friend just bought a new computer and we did this yesterday. On the other hand, Ubuntu was pretty much done installing but the time I entered a username and password to create the account.

    • I wish Windows had an option to generate an ISO image with all the latest patches, so one could just install the OS, during the install process, have it load all the updates, and call it done, so when the OS boots, it will require a relatively few amount of fixes. Ubuntu fetches patches and is ready to go on the first reboot, although I do an `apt update && apt -y full-upgrade` to ensure that it is completely up to date before I throw the box into a patch manager. Of course, the H1/H2 releases sor

      • by Thud457 ( 234763 )
        Slipstreaming [winhelponline.com] still seems to be supported.
      • Also, these ISO images don't work.

        I don't use Windows. But two friends wanted me to help them build a Windows computer, so I figured I'd give it a go. I downloaded a win11 ISO, used one of the standard Linux tools to burn it to a boot USB, and tried to do the install.

        It booted into a win11 installer (yay, the boot disk worked), asked some question, then told me that some "media driver was missing" and directed me to put in another USB drive with the driver.

        What the heck? Why do I need drivers for this? (It

        • In my experience the default Windows installer only supports USB2 in many cases.

        • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          The best way to install Windows 11 is to use a USB flash drive and Rufus. Rufus is a Windows app that will transfer the Windows 11 ISO to a flash drive. You can also tweak the installation to not create an online Microsoft account.

          You can also load up some basic software on the flash drive, like Firefox, so that you don't need to use Edge to download it. I'd recommend Chocolatey or winget package managers, but they both seem to suck quite a lot.

          During install when it asks you for your region, select "Englis

      • This exists in many forms but they all require some work ahead of time. If you use the Microsoft Media Creation Tool you do get the latest "big" update rolled in (which for 10 and 11 is 2H22)

        I do wish the MCT was updated say, monthly or quarterly as even using the latest version you have a year of updates to apply but it's not like you always have to start from scratch. If you're on 2H22 already going through the update is far less than hour for me usually and you can do the other fresh install stuff whil

    • This is quite exaggerated.

      On modern HW, Windows updates and all drivers are normally fetched and installed in under 15 minutes and it's a fully automatic at that (a reboot or two might be required). Remember 15 years ago you had to painstakingly either install drivers from a slow CD/DVD disk or Google for them with with a varying degree of success. And more often than not Windows 10/11 install all the drivers automatically meaning you don't have to install anything else whereas OEM drivers are often bundl

      • by Malc ( 1751 )

        You'll spend more than 15 minutes trying to figure out how to install without having a Microsoft account. WHY? I don't need it, especially as I only ever use Windows in a VM on my Mac to verify Windows-specific parts of our software.

        • It takes you 15 minutes to figure out how to not have your VM connected to the internet? The fuck?

        • You'll spend more than 15 minutes trying to figure out how to install without having a Microsoft account. WHY? I don't need it, especially as I only ever use Windows in a VM on my Mac to verify Windows-specific parts of our software.

          Simple, you just make sure the machine is not connected to the internet. You can then set the OS up with a local account and not get nagged to create a Windows account after reconnecting. Just did that with two new HP computers the other day for a friend who did not have a MS account. However if you want to get something from the Microsoft Store, you will have to have one unfortunately.

          • Re:Also updates (Score:5, Interesting)

            by Entropius ( 188861 ) on Monday August 21, 2023 @12:50PM (#63785712)

            Right, but you already knew that lying to your computer that you had no internet access was the only way to bypass the Microsoft account thing. You already knew the answer, but it takes people who don't know the answer a bit of time to figure it out, especially when they're used to software that doesn't have an adversarial or at least exploitative relationship with the people who use it.

            If someone asks if you want to have sex, you should just be able to say "no thanks". You shouldn't need to lie and say that you don't have genitalia.

          • You'll spend more than 15 minutes trying to figure out how to install without having a Microsoft account. WHY? I don't need it, especially as I only ever use Windows in a VM on my Mac to verify Windows-specific parts of our software.

            Simple, you just make sure the machine is not connected to the internet.

            That would make the driver download process very quick indeed.

      • On Win XP the drivers had to be on a floppy designated A:

    • by Osgeld ( 1900440 )

      interesting, I installed Lubuntu and first thing it did after rebooting was spend almost an hour updating, then when I went into the software center there was another 16 ready to go

    • One day, people will realise that MS has been infiltrated and corrupted by Open Source Hippies who have added this stuff in the over-optimistic hope that Windows users will be dreven to use their secure, usable, working Unix-like software instead of "Closed Source Poop-Like" (TM) software that insists on slapping you in the face with a wet fish at every turn and mouse-click.

      MS have long understood they do not need to address this, as their users are easily addicted to the "slap in the face with a wet fish"

  • Not to mention.... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Kelxin ( 3417093 ) on Monday August 21, 2023 @10:39AM (#63785208)
    There's also dozens if not a hundred different things that need to be changed or uninstalled through PowerShell, command prompt or windows registry that there isn't an interface for or Microsoft tries to block you from removing such as the Xbox integration, etc. From a "fresh" install to a usable product that doesn't send every file that Microsoft isn't familiar with to them plus diagnostic and usage data takes several hours and for most end users they just leave it at defaults giving Microsoft a treasure trove of data about every single person and business.
    • By ~two decades ago, we had proper terms for that: "adware", "spyware", "crapware/shovelware". Now that kind of behaviour is included right in the OS...

      Back in the days, our response was obvious: immediate deletion of such software, and investigation how could the infestation happen.

      Why not reintroduce that rule, and make a 100% hard rule: boycott anything that includes such kinds of malware? So no Windows, OSX, Ubuntu, non-degoogled Android, ...

  • I had to setup a computer with Windows 11 and it was hell. No easy way to create a local account only (because in Microsoft security design, you need to ask for Microsoft account password when you setup a computer for someone else). And once you finish the pain of choosing between being "spy a lot" or "spy quite a lot", you end up having to remove all those applications you never wanted.

  • They ventilated their users?

  • by kaur ( 1948056 ) on Monday August 21, 2023 @10:55AM (#63785266)

    Not that I like installing yet another tool, but here we have real need.
    "Cleanup tool to clean up after you cleaned up" or something.

    How do enterprise admins cope?
    They just don't, and ignore the crapware and stuff that will stay on their company devices?
    Or are certain Windows licence types protected from this?

    • by caseih ( 160668 )

      They don't. Businesses pay through the teeth to get "enterprise licenses" for Windows 11, which is a pure install without all the garbage. Normal people cannot even buy the enterprise version. But I suspect there are a growing number of powershell scripts to strip the bload and turn a normal install into something more like enterprise.

      I am not sure you can do this during install, but after install you can remove your microsoft account from the login and it becomes a normal local login. But it will contin

      • They don't. Businesses pay through the teeth to get "enterprise licenses" for Windows 11, which is a pure install without all the garbage. Normal people cannot even buy the enterprise version. But I suspect there are a growing number of powershell scripts to strip the bload and turn a normal install into something more like enterprise.

        Yes, there are several third-party programs and scripts that can unfuck many (but not all) of the things that Microsoft has fucked. It would be nice if we didn't have to do that, but at least we have that option available.

    • Not that I like installing yet another tool, but here we have real need. "Cleanup tool to clean up after you cleaned up" or something.

      The funny thing is, Windows has a program called "Cleanmgr.msc". Run it and it shows you all the unnecessary files you can delete., especially all the crap left behind after doing an update.

    • enterprise only GPO's let you trun off stuff but you need have an enterprise SKU on each workstation to really pull it off.

  • Also does the very same things, although it was easy to setup a local account.
    I didn't installed Windows 11 yet to tell how much mandatory is to sign-in in your MS account.
    Anyway, I'll stay with Win 10 ("good" Windows?) as long as I can.

    • From what I know, MS has changed Win 10 to also require an account. If you have an old install image, it does not require it, but if you download a new install image then you cannot escape it.
      • by flink ( 18449 )

        I think if you yank the network cable out and install from a flash drive it will still let you create a local account.

    • by daten ( 575013 ) on Monday August 21, 2023 @01:28PM (#63785866)
      Windows 11 makes sign-in with a Microsoft account mandatory IF you give the system network access during setup. If you disable network access, it will time out and then allow you to create a local account. But as long as network access is avaliable, it will not present this option.
  • Breaking news: ice is cold.

  • If you have a windows laptop that you keep mostly as a backup computing device that you only use once a month to make sure it still works and the battery management hasn't cooked the battery... every time you use it you are essentially downloading updates and rebooting 2 or 3 times. It is stupid.
    • by caseih ( 160668 ) on Monday August 21, 2023 @11:23AM (#63785376)

      Modern games are just as as bad, especially if you don't play the game regularly and have hours to devote to the activity. I bought MS Flight Simulator 2020 but I only have time to play it once in a while (a couple times a month at most). But it's essentially unplayable for me because every time I fire it up I find I must download and install a multi-GB update first. So I tell it to update and walk away; maybe I can play another time. Then a week or two later I think I might try it again. Nope. Another update. And repeat. People complain about this on the msfs forums, but the answer is always, tough luck, we're developing.

      Looks like for casual play X-Plane is the way to go. But maybe it's just as bad.

  • Ironic naming for things is nothing new. After all, there are 16 "Final" Fantasy games? But at least there was a reason for that name. According to creator Hironobu Sakaguchi, he named the game "Final Fantasy" because it had a Tolkeinesque aspect of fantasy novels and he thought it would be his and Square's last game if it did not sell well.
    • That Final Fantasy urban legend was debunked a long time ago.

      And this is the danger of simply accepting what you see on the internet when a real simple Internet search will give you the actual truth.

  • I occasionally help other people with their Windows machines. Cleaning all the unwanted cr@p up - only to have some of it reappear after the next major update.

    Really, they couldn't make it clearer that they consider your PC to be *their* machine. Businesses can keep it (business installs seem to be saner), but consumers really need to stop buying Windows machines...

    • by UnknowingFool ( 672806 ) on Monday August 21, 2023 @11:28AM (#63785386)

      I dread installing the next major Windows update. As in the past, the update could install optional components like telemetry that MS deems as "vital". I think the one that removed Internet Explorer defaulted Edge as the system browser. Instead of the simple "use other browser as default" in the past, it required me to change the default software for each filetype like HTML, XML, etc.

      Updates also changes settings. For example, I do not have an Xbox so I disabled Xbox Game Bar as it would annoy me with popups and notifications when I was playing a game (that most of the time was not available on the Xbox). A major update not only re-enabled it, it changed it to where it ignored the main setting of "disabled". Now "disabled" meant "running in background" as a service which means the notifications came back.

  • by Voyager529 ( 1363959 ) <voyager529.yahoo@com> on Monday August 21, 2023 @11:22AM (#63785372)

    0. Use Rufus (https://rufus.ie/en/) to create a bootable Windows 11 installer that handles steps 1-3 for you if desired; run through the Windows install process.
    1. During the initial run, hit Shift+F10, then type "oobe\bypassnro". This will cause a reboot. Also, disconnect from the internet.
    2. During the second run, state that you 'don't have internet', and you want to 'continue with a limited setup'. This will allow you to set up a local account.
    3. During the customization screen, select 'no' to all of the options.
    4. When you get to a desktop, open Edge. Each of the initial setup screens has a low-contrast close button; use them. Go to www.ninite.com and download Chrome/Firefox, maybe 7zip and Notepad++ or whatever other things are needed (.net frameworks are also helpful if running older software).
    Open Chrome/Firefox and go here: https://community.spiceworks.c... [spiceworks.com] . It works on Windows 11 and still gets rid of most of the core annoyances and appy-apps, needless scheduled tasks, and so on. Reboot.
    5. Download this awesome application, run it as admin, and click through the desired checkboxes: https://www.w10privacy.de/engl... [w10privacy.de] .
    6. You'll probably need to set Windows Defender to exclude the Hosts File from detection; it'll reset it by default based on the telemetry blocking from step 5 if you implemented it.
    7. Go to Settings->Apps->Default Apps and set your preferred default browser and PDF reader.
    8. If you're adventurous and loathe the Windows 11 Taskbar and Start Menu, install ExplorerPatcher: https://github.com/valinet/Exp... [github.com] . Classic Shell and OpenShell also work to bring back a useful, ad-free start menu. NOTE: some recent Windows Updates have caused issues with EP; it's a bit of a cat-and-mouse game that is fixed with an uninstall/reinstall, but it is a pain to resolve if the need arises.

    It's absolutely abhorrent that it requires third party utilities and shell scripts to make Windows 11 vaguely tolerable...but this config has been viable for me thus far.

  • by Arnonyrnous Covvard ( 7286638 ) on Monday August 21, 2023 @11:26AM (#63785382)
    No self-respecting nerd should be using Windows 11 on their personal computers. If you're going to touch something like that, it better be for a job, where you can just shrug and get paid extra every time Microsoft throws a wrench into the works.
  • This is why my standard answer when asked for help setting up a new Windows machine is, "Sorry, you are on your own."

    It's a damned shame, but what used to be a simple job now takes hours and the results are never satisfactory. It's just not worth the time and trouble.

    I'll keep running Windows 7 in a virtual machine until Microsoft pries it out of my cold dead fingers.

  • Rufus? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by dfn5 ( 524972 ) on Monday August 21, 2023 @11:35AM (#63785406) Journal
    I've been annoyed by the microsoft login thing for a while and I discovered Rufus, the tool for creating a bootable USB install media from an ISO. During the process of creating the USB rufus can disable some of the annoying things about windows, like creating a local user and removing the need for a microsoft.com account.
  • by brunes69 ( 86786 ) <slashdot@[ ]rstead.org ['kei' in gap]> on Monday August 21, 2023 @11:39AM (#63785424)

    Ever tried setting up an iPhone or iPad without an iCloud account?

    Ever tried using an iPhone or iPad for any period of time without subscribing to iCloud? You will max out your free 10GB in about 5 minutes (first time your device backs up) then it will nag you to subscribe to the paid tier in perpetuity after that.

  • In other words, using Windows today is much like browsing the Internet without adblock.

    Or, slashdot's "amplify" ad spam which takes up 1/3 of the browser window.

    Horrendous. I guess users got so used to the malware/popup experience that Microsoft thought they should integrate it for all users.

    I've got to wonder how many millions if not billions of productive hours are lost annually to this kind of thing. It should be illegal to have "mandatory click-through value added" features on a paid product.

    This is the

  • No oxy, just a moron that doesn't understand how to use the install manifest.

  • Remember the "Active Desktop" or whatever it was back in the 90s that had like, Warner cartoon characters on it or something?

    Sounds like it's back, except that it's truly malicious now.

    Also, AFAIK they're still on with this crippled "Home edition" nonsense. That always pissed me off, and is even more exasperating now that a lot of people work from home.

    And listen up, MS. I'm not your typical "M$ is the enemy" Slashdotter. I actually liked Windows up to 8. You're losing Me. ME. You're making money hand

  • by Virtucon ( 127420 ) on Monday August 21, 2023 @12:31PM (#63785608)

    Fortunately, there are some things that can clean up the mess. I use Win-Debloat-Tools [github.com] on an instance that's just been installed in a VM or on a spare machine. Next, create a PE build Custom Installer. Here's an older reference on doing that, [elevenforum.com] but it still works.

    I use this for targeting Win11 VMs mostly.

  • the only way to get a clean install is to completely wipe the drive, repartition and install Linux, preferably Slackware the cleanest & purest Linux distro
    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      Sir, you lie.

      There are other options:

      OpenBSD is a perfectly viable alternative, and Devuan is not bad if you do want Linux.

  • Admit you're addicted to proprietary software and games that intentionally break wine and virtualization. Microsoft knows you have too much of a dependency to switch to Linux so is tightening the screws. Enjoy Pluton and Windows 12, you will get your next Winnabis fix.
  • Newsflash: it's not 1997. People don't think in terms of 'OS' versus 'Application' anymore. They want their computers to work, you know, out of the box, for what they use computers for.

    And for a lot of people, that's Office, or games, or cloud storage access.

  • And nobody is doing anything about it. Windows + Office + Xbox. 2 of those have been staples for a LONG time.

  • Is they (intentionally) screw up a bunch of registry settings during, especially the ones that stop their ads from popping up.
  • by Murdoch5 ( 1563847 ) on Monday August 21, 2023 @03:11PM (#63786216) Homepage
    I make no apologies for calling Windows 11 adware, wrapped about shareware, passed off as a professional OS. Why can't the OS just be an OS, a tool in the background that's silent, efficient, and lets me work without being invasive? An OS that shows you ads, that has numerous tracking systems built in, including a keylogger, requires you signup with the company who made it, and where you get pages of bloatware by default, is not intended for professional use.

    A professional OS stays out of the way, stays silent, tracks nothing by default back to the company, and includes no ads, bloatware, stupid widgets, and all the other nonsense. Contrast Fedora 38 to Windows 11, and one thing that jumps you at you, Fedora was designed for the professional who needs to get work done, Windows 11 was designed for the person who has to act like they're getting work done.

    Windows has become a joke, it's not stable, security, or privacy focused, It's not preformat, trimmed or designed to be powerful, it's a toy used to spy on you and push ads. If Microsoft didn't have a hold on the Desktop, Windows 11 would not have succeeded. The reason people accept Windows 11, is because they got a free upgrade or their machine came with it preinstalled, period.
  • by ukoda ( 537183 ) on Monday August 21, 2023 @03:59PM (#63786344) Homepage
    Does pointing out the OOBE for Linux Mint includes none of the stated crap and once installed you can pretty much forget about it, no need for clean installs or worried about being nagged.

    So is mentioning that contrast on a Windows news story 'Flamebait' or 'Troll' rating?

Despite all appearances, your boss is a thinking, feeling, human being.

Working...