Getting rid of OEM junk in Windows 11

[rdl]

This popped up on Ars-Technica a couple of days ago. If you haven't seen it already, might be worth a read.

Windows 11 has made the “clean Windows install” an oxymoron

[Hogwild]

O+O AppBuster gets a lot of good reviews.

https://www.oo-software.com/en/ooappbuster

It's portable too. No install needed.

[coromonadalix]

O+O AppBuster gets a lot of good reviews.

https://www.oo-software.com/en/ooappbuster

It's portable too. No install needed.

combined with O&O Shut up 10   =  Good Team   

[Karel]

The keyword is "if" 

Indeed, it's a kind of natural selection. Only motivated and/or educated people can/want to use Linux. 

[John B]

Hate to be that guy, but if you're looking at "Linux" your not really looking at Linux, you're looking at the desktop environment, of which there is a huge number of options, and usually options within your distro of choice. Mint is basically setup out of the box, and comes in a few DE varieties. It even has a lot of in built troubleshooting, making the whole thing feel very polished.

The look/feel/workflow of a distro isn't really a plus or minus against Linux, as they can vary and be essentially whatever you want. The bigger issues are software compatibility and hardware compatibility.

What made me sick of windows is that you're constantly fighting against a product you're paying for, same goes for a lot of software/programs. No transition to another platform is going to be all positives and no negatives, but the change to Linux opens a ton of possibilities where Windows or MacOS are "you get what you get".

[rsjsouza]

I blocked and uninstalled lots of OEM crap from my Lenovo laptop with Windows 11 and so far it has worked alright.

One application that I left lingering is the Lenovo Vantage, which contains a few interesting tidbits as well as a device driver updater - while it does not clog my system, it will be canned at the first signs of irritation.

As for Linux, it is a viable alternative for a multitude of applications and it shines as a lighter OS for the older platform. At work I use it for all serious EM simulations and some EDA work as the performance is better than my bloated work Windows machine.

[thermistor-guy]

...
Last week I wanted to set up a standalone computer to run one tool in my shop.  The software to run this tool is available in Windows, Mac and Linux versions.  I have been using the Windows version for a few years on a laptop and while it is working it isn't really robust for the shop environment.

Set up a desktop machine and load Ubuntu.  It comes up fine but when I go to Firefox to download the tools software (installed as part of the setup) it doesn't work.  It says it is running but no window appears.  Pisser but I use the application manager to download a different browser which works fine and I download the software.  But it isn't in Flatpack format so doesn't work automagically.  The vendor for the software has a help forum and various suggestions are made on how to solve the problem and none of them work.  Tried Mint and Fedora, which had different problems.  All I want to do is run a piece of software that is supposedly usable in the Linux environment.   I have failed after several attempts and am now setting the machine up in Windows.

Windows has lots of irritations, but they really aren't anything compared to trying to keep up with all of the incompatibilities in the Linux universe.  Everyone is having fun trying to make it perfect by "improving" this, that and the other thing, but perfection is the enemy of good enough.  Until Linux settles on more universal operating modes and standards it will never rise out if its niche on the desktop.

Yeah, know the feeling.

I've settled on 64-bit Debian + XFCE desktop for my various personal machines - PCs, Udoo Bolt Gear, rpis - as the default setup. I'm enjoying the consistency.

Even got 32-bit ExpressVPN for rpi to work with 64-bit Debian. Very happy with that.

[coromonadalix]

I blocked and uninstalled lots of OEM crap from my Lenovo laptop with Windows 11 and so far it has worked alright.

One application that I left lingering is the Lenovo Vantage, which contains a few interesting tidbits as well as a device driver updater - while it does not clog my system, it will be canned at the first signs of irritation.

you can keep it   but kill its service, and put it into manual,  wont run until you need it

done many thing like that too....  i use Hibituninstaller,  you have startup manager, services manager  etc .. in it

very practical to see whats going on  ..

[John B]

I've just had to build up a new portable system for low latency audio processing. I really wanted to use Linux on this to be finally rid of Windows or MacOS, but the hurdles are still a bit too significant to risk in a live situation. So I've had to delve back into Windows 11 after my last foray being 8.1.

What struck me is how much Win11 is like a website out of the box rather than an OS. Things like the subtle ads for OneDrive, Microsoft 365 etc, then there's the web integration in the search bar. Ive spend a good while uninstalling everything not strictly necessary, and anything that can't be gotten rid of I disable it from running in the background. Things like Teams were running in the background at start up for no apparent reason, plus a few other processes that would have been accessing the internet. I'm down to about 120 processes at startup, still not great but an improvement. It would have been around 100, but some ASUS drivers brought it back up.

A few registry tweaks later I disabled widgets and stripped out the web integration in the search bar. For some reason, it was deciding to suggest holiday locations if you're disabled. I went through every setting and turned off anything resembling "Would you like MS to suggest things tailored to you?" Yeah, no thanks m8.

The OS had almost redeemed itself, but then, I used the right click in explorer........

[coromonadalix]

you should have installed Win 10 instead,  yes  instead of dealing with crappy 11  loll

most people forget now   windows is pushed as a service M$oft will love to push you many things / unwanted thing,  meteo,  comments, adverts    etc ....

now teams is "contaminated" too, Office too    yes i would like to fully switch onto Linux BUT BUT   still need  windows thingies,  even with emulators  it doesn't resolve all the problems i have ... 

[SiliconWizard]

you should have installed Win 10 macOS, Linux, FreeBSD instead,  yes  instead of dealing with crappy 11  loll

FTFY!

[Infraviolet]

coromonadalix: You could always try Windows inside a VM, with Linux as the VM's host. It should make Windows exe software work where "emulation" and Wine will not.