11 ms·

What if you delete the “Program Files” folder in Windows? [video]

120 points by redbell 4y ago

daguava 4y ago
Continuing the model of "Distrust us every other release, we'll be good to you on the next one" Microsoft operating system model is getting insanely old. You can have continued progress without choosing the off-release to fist your consumers.
voidfunc 4y ago
the tl;dw is "It breaks"
- permo-w 4y ago
  and file explorer and task manager revert to their Windows 10 appearance
MikeTheGreat 4y ago
...And for my next trick, `rm -rf /`!
- gradstudent 4y ago
  Is it really the same? Or more like `rm -rf /usr` ? Was this folder always required to maintain the integrity of the system, or is this a more recent thing?
  - chungy 4y ago
    On most Linux distributions, it's basically the same. Your package manager tends to make no distinction between OS files and installed program files. FreeBSD does another approach, where user-installed packages go to /usr/local and don't get intermixed with the base operating system.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    It's actually quite similar; it used to be that all the "system" binaries were in /bin and /sbin and the "other stuff" was in /usr/bin and /usr/sbin but that has not been true for quite a while on many distributions.
  - ajsnigrutin 4y ago
    "back in the time", /usr could be on a network drive, and /bin had to contain just enough stuff to boot the system, set up networking and mount the /usr
    - codetrotter 4y ago
      Interestingly I actually did manage to make my /usr partition unmountable a few years ago on a system where I had changed the shell for the root user from /bin/sh to /usr/local/bin/bash and ever since then I have kept the default shell for the root user on my systems unmodified :)
      - euroderf 4y ago
        Back in PDP-11 days (Unix v.6) my boss managed to do a "rm -fr *" not in his personal bin (as he believed ATM) but in the system bin. Oooooops. (but Armando S was ready with functioning backups.)
        jesprenj 4y ago
        https://www.ecb.torontomu.ca/~elf/hack/recovery.html https://www.ecb.torontomu.ca/~elf/hack/recovery.html
        salgernon 4y ago
        I've been in a similar state - I had a shell running but lost /bin/ls among other things; but I could use "echo *" and redirection to recreate an /etc/mtab.
- quickthrower2 4y ago
  Or chroot. And that is how docker was born.
- pluc 4y ago
  rm -rf /*bin/* would probably be more similar to deleting "program files"
liminal 4y ago
The surprising this is that deleting those folders on Windows 11 results in it presenting as Windows 10.
cainxinth 4y ago
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/delete-system32 https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/delete-system32
hbn 4y ago
That's interesting that it started reverting into Windows 10. It makes you wonder how the thing is built. Like rather than modifying the code, Windows 11 is like a service that run on top of 10 and modifies a few UI things near the end of the startup process. Was that just some kind of hack due to time constraints? Or is the Windows codebase really that much of a delicate ecosystem when it comes to not breaking legacy software so they couldn't even modify the taskbar or file explorer without wrecking something?
- anoonmoose 4y ago
  Recently, I was required to use a PC that had Windows 11 on it. I tried to set it up like the rest of my computers, which involves moving the task bar from the bottom of the screen to the side, which I've done for years in Windows. Yeah, W11 doesn't support that. If you do some digging you'll find MS claiming it's a large technical lift that they have no current plans to do. What does this mean with regards to your question? Not much. But that regression in functionality, in an area that every other OS I use supports and has supported for years, definitely suggests the thing is a hack. In my humble uninformed opinion.
  - stagger87 4y ago
    They have since added the ability to do this.
    - mikebridgman 4y ago
      Do you have a link? It seems it still requires a 3rd party app.
    - TehCorwiz 4y ago
      The location of the Windows 11 taskbar cannot be set through any UI options. They do not officially support changing the location of the taskbar according to available documentation. The upgrade message inside Windows 10 explicitly calls out this deficiency along with other before continuing. There are registry hacks that change the location, but this is unsupported. Docs: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/how-to-use-the-taskbar-in-windows-0657a50f-0cc7-dbfd-ae6b-05020b195b07 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/how-to-use-the-t...
Waterluvian 4y ago
In high school my friends and I had a basement drinking game called "System 32 Roulette." We had a fresh Windows 98 machine and you had to pick a file inside c:/windows/system32/ by random and forcibly delete it then reboot the machine. If the computer booted up and you could successfully get back to that folder, everyone else had to take a drink. If not, you had to finish your drink and then reinstall Windows.
- whichdan 4y ago
  My gut reaction was "wow that sounds boring" but then I reread it and realized I would have absolutely been excited about this in high school.
  - Waterluvian 4y ago
    It was mostly a side attraction while we played Smash Bros or whatnot. But the best part is watching a super drunk person trying to install windows. It was hilarious.
    - dylan604 4y ago
      Was this off of CD-ROM or a stack of floppies? I think 3.11 was the last of the floppies, but memory is hazy around what 95 install media was. Pretty sure 98 was CD, but that could be a fun "bonus round" to force an install from floppy.
      - Waterluvian 4y ago
        It was a CD, but a really low quality burned CD that we eventually scratched the label side on, which stripped the data side off with it. So it was eventually hung from the ceiling with dental floss. We crossed out "98" with marker and wrote in "95", but to be honest, it didn't install anything by then.
      - hermitdev 4y ago
        I know I've installed Win95 off of floppies. Don't recall the exact number, but believe it was around 40-50 3.5" floppies. It came in a box about the length of a shoe box.
TacticalCoder 4y ago
Can I use this thread about Windows to vent a bit? I don't use Windows but what a gigantic clusterfuck of a turd. Mother in law now wants "two monitors instead of one". Whatever... I took a PC with Windows 8.1, bought a DisplayPort-to-HDMI adapter (GPU has got two output but her monitors are only HDMI) and it's kinda ok but then "Windows 8.1 support expires on 2023-jan-10". OK, let's buy Windows 11. I try to install Windows 11, had to create a boot disk or something (because why not) using Ventoy in wich I put the Windows .iso (just dd'ing the .iso as with Linux won't be sufficient apparently) and I happily launch the install. Hardware not supported by Windows 11. OK, I'll give my mom in law my AMD 3700X and install Windows 11 on that one instead (and I'll buy myself a 7700X). Same thing: "Hardware not supported by Windows 11'. WTF. That 3700X is a recent machine. And the error message it totaly uninformative: it just says "hardware not supported". Well, good thing a few years ago I made her switch her SME to Google Workspace / GSuite only. She and her employees are doing everything from the paid version of GSuite (something like 50 EUR / employee per year). Guess what's installing atm on that 3700X for my mother in law? Ubuntu. I dd'ed the .iso and the install starts just fine. It's insane: you want to give 145 EUR to Microsoft for their ad-ridden and keylogger infested spyware of an OS but they don't let you. Unhelpful error message. Instead of saying what is not supported, they just say: "Hardware not supported". So now it's going to be Ubuntu everywhere at her little SME and OS X laptops for when they're on the go.
- vxNsr 4y ago
  Hint: you gotta enable TPM This is the first result when you google Windows 11 requirements. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/windows-11-specifications https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/windows-11-specifica... All the rest of your complains boil down to being upset that Microsoft doesn’t support old stuff forever… guess how long old versions of Ubuntu are supported? (Hint it’s not forever) Also I could be wrong but pretty sure windows 8 still gets a free upgrade to Windows 10/11. They don’t advertise it, but the licensing server still accepts old licenses. Also if you want you basically can do the iso onto a usb…
  - bombela 4y ago
    But the error message is completely optuse. How can you be so sure it's because of the TPM? The message says nothing but fuck you user. Also modern version of Ubuntu (and linux distribution in general) have no issues on decade old hardware (I have a couple machines that old).
rkeene2 4y ago
Lots of things break if you move "C:\Program Files" to a different drive (and make it a mountpoint), updates try to RENAME from a temporary directory into it, but fails because it's a different filesystem instance. IIS used to also kernel panic in this case.
popcalc 4y ago
Relevant: Suicide Linux https://github.com/tiagoad/suicide-linux https://github.com/tiagoad/suicide-linux https://esoteric.codes/blog/suicide-linux https://esoteric.codes/blog/suicide-linux
- phist_mcgee 4y ago
  Junior developers think this is what linux is like by default
anonu 4y ago
71k views. Seriously? Why... Useless topic.
rkagerer 4y ago
I've made hardlinks for mine to Prog64 and Prog32 for years and it's helped with ergonomics.
sriram_malhar 4y ago
I discovered the hard way that removing python 2.7 from Linux lead to the system being unbootable. I was trying to removing "unnecessary" versions!
- Doxin 4y ago
  At least with linux there's ways where you could fix that. I personally probably wouldn't as it's a hassle and my home folder is on a separate partition anyways, so a clean install doesn't lose me much. For those interested in the how anyway: You'd boot into a liveCD, Chroot into the installs root folder, and apt-get python2.7. If removing python breaks apt there's probably some flag to apt-get to get it to poke at a not-root folder you could use. Worst case you copy the python install from the liveCD, reboot, and then fix python from the booted system using a now-working apt.
- cuteboy19 4y ago
  It is possible that it only broke your de visual shell. Ubuntu used to have a lot of dependencies on python
_8j50 4y ago
Should be able to restore it via VSS.
sinuhe69 4y ago
The title should be “How to delete “Program Files” instead.
hilbert42 4y ago
I've been battling with Microsoft for control over my machine for decades and I don't use any of its OSes later than Windows 7, and then only to a limited extent since sufficient Linux and Android apps have been available to replace once-essential Windows ones. First, my requirements: what I need of an OS is a file launcher for my apps and a means of access to my files and not much else. I even consider networking and TCP etc. additional to my basic requirements—yes, I require them, but they ought to take the form of a separate installable application which I should be able to select from a range of similar products. I have no control over developers who develop apps for Win32/64 APIs so if I want to use their applications then I'm usually obliged to use MS Windows—and that's the problem—I'm forced to hack Windows as Microsoft puts hundreds of roadblocks in my way and makes it almost impossible for me to both achieve a minimum system optimized for my requirements and to stop the company spying on me or selling my personal data. I've never been happy with just Administrator rights as it's too restrictive, to hack Windows properly I want superuser rights, and to achieve at least some aspects of it, I'll sometimes go to the trouble of deleting unnecessary Windows features holus-bolus and or nuking or mutilating Microsoft's constant and increasing roadblocks that attempt me from doing so. Sometimes my efforts are very successful, other times not. The trouble is, for me an operating system is only a means to an end (I've little interest in the workings of Microsoft's proprietary code as its forever changing and I've too few resources to be fully proficient and constantly up-to-date year after year). This poses a dilemma, as (a) I often need a hack in a hurry, (b) I don't have the time or sufficient knowledge to spend ages reverse engineering/disassembling the code, and (c), as there is usually precious little really useful information about what I'm trying to achieve available on the internet, my attempts to achieve them are often by brute force and brutal (BTW, I'm never worried about crashing the OS as I can stream it from a backup in minutes and no data is lost as anything of importance is stored on separate drives). This is a huge subject of which not much appears on the Web, that's why this story's video is important even though it's very superficial and tells us very little of what we actually need to know to do the job properly. It seems to me that much of what I'm about to mention doesn't get mentioned because either websites are either scared of publishing stuff that's highly likely to end up producing an irreversible crash or BSOD and or that those who discover truly powerful ways of taming Windows deliberately do not tell others (knowledge is power after all). What follows is just a very short bullet list of ideas and things I do to give the flavor and it's far from complete (my notes on how I modify Windows for my own use extends to many hundreds of pages). Moreover, what I mention here does not extend to every Windows installation I do (they all have different uses and the need for integrity, security etc. varies with each installation). If anyone has any ideas, links to hack sites etc. then I'd be most grateful to hear from you. 1. First, although the Dark Web is likely to have much more sophisticated solutions that I'd really like to know about I don't go there for answers—certainly not so in recent years—for all the obvious reasons. 2. One thing that's obvious from the video is that the later versions of Windows 10 and 11 are much more solid operating systems than earlier ones, a BSOD on say Windows 10 is much less likely than on Windows 7. The video shows us that and it's also my own experience (whilst I only use Win 7 I've spent time attempting to hack later ones including Win 10 (but not 11) to the extent that I would consider them suitable to use (at this point I still consider it unusable). What's important here however is that whilst Windows 10 and up have more inbuilt Microsoft trash the fact that the basic operating system (its core) is now much more solid means that users can hack it with much less chance of total failure (the video clearly shows that). Remember, years ago Mark Russinovich made the comment that the essential Windows core files only amount to some 40 to 60MB, so I reckon all the rest is fair game for serious hacking. With that in mind we really need to ask how the fuck can a full version of Windows amount to an enormous 7 gigabytes or so (when one thinks about it, it truly is outrageous—so is the fact that we users are so acquiescent in complying with Microsoft and letting it get away with subjecting us to so much crap). 3. The video shows the problem of deleting both directories and files because the operating system locks them. Anyone who remembers the lack of adequate file/network locking in the '80s will recall all the effort that went into bootstrapping them to ensure that locked files cannot be casually unlocked. Unfortunately, whilst clearly important for stability, it can, at other times, be a curse such as when one's trying to delete some feature that Microsoft does not want you to remove. Of course, file and directory permissions play a big hand in this too. (I've many ideas for inventive hackers on how file-locking ought to be hacked.) This used to drive me mad until I found a quick, albeit dirty, solution. If you want to delete Windows directories or files locked by either file locking or permissions then boot up a Linux disk or Linux utility such as Parted Magic and use its file manager. Problem solved, we can now delete anything at will. When I was testing Windows 10 I deleted great swathes of files and directories and was essentially able to remove all the useless add-ons and utilities without affecting the stability of operating system in the slightest. This way, I even made many hacks to the desktop, some with considerable success, others not (I've more to do on this when I've time). I could provide much more info about it but obviously I can't do so here. That's not to say I'm very knowledgeable, in fact I know much less than I ought to know about it, and info from others about which Windows file does what and what the consequences are of deleting it, etc. would be very useful to know. 4. This brings me to the need for resources. In the past there were re-compilations of Windows CDs in which much of the dross had been removed and key setup changes made. This was a quick way of cleaning up much of Windows in advance of it being installed. I've not seen any of these disks for Windows 10 (although I've not looked of late), does anyone know what the status of such CDs is? What's needed for the game and adventurous like me is a dedicated Website that lists all these super-hacks together with info and user experiences. If anyone knows of any then please let me know. Here, I'm referring to sites that are likely to be headed with words to the effect 'Don't proceed further with this website if you are worried that taking our advice may brick your Windows OS', after all sites dedicated to rooting Android phones are full of such warnings. Such sites would also provide hacks such as how to change 'stubborn' permissions and unlock files (and advise which files the invaluable tool Unlocker cannot unlock and why it cannot do so—that said, I couldn't live with Unlocker, every Windows user ought to install it)! Similarly, we need a Windows 10 version of the now-defunct and once invaluable tool X-Setup Pro, it was invaluable because it actually showed the actual registry patches/hacks before it applied them (and the app had many hundreds of such useful patches builtin). I could go on as there's much more but it'll have to for now. Edit: the video presenter shows surprise that the Windows 11 user interface is built upon Windows 10 UI. This I did not know but I am not at all surprised as I do know that Microsoft has been up to these tricks since at least Windows 7. With Windows 7 Microsoft eliminated Quick Launch from the TaskBar but with a little effort it was easily brought back (I still use it, it's one of the first mods I do to a Win 7 installation). What I find so very damn annoying about this finding is that the Win 10 UI is alive and well and hidden within the Win 11 one. Thus, there is absolutely no reason why users should not be able to select a UI from an older (or previous version) when upgrading (here users should be able to retain the Win 10 UI). Clearly, this is only bloody-mindedness on Microsoft's part that they cannot do so. Think back to Windows 8 and Metro: imagine how much trouble Microsoft could have avoided if users who hated Metro could have simply selected/kept the Windows 7 UI. That this was not possible because of an internal Microsoft policy decision tells us much about its corporate strategy. I've claimed for years that Microsoft's policy of forcing disruptive change onto users without option is both deliberate and authoritarian. Unfortunately, this deliberate tactic of 'Disruption' is much of the reason for why there's so much trouble on the internet now. Simply, these arrogant bastards think they know it all when often they haven't a bloody clue.

120 points by redbell 4y ago

Continuing the model of "Distrust us every other release, we'll be good to you on the next one" Microsoft operating system model is getting insanely old. You can have continued progress without choosing the off-release to fist your consumers.

voidfunc 4y ago

the tl;dw is "It breaks"

permo-w 4y ago
and file explorer and task manager revert to their Windows 10 appearance

MikeTheGreat 4y ago

...And for my next trick, `rm -rf /`!

gradstudent 4y ago
Is it really the same? Or more like `rm -rf /usr` ? Was this folder always required to maintain the integrity of the system, or is this a more recent thing?
- chungy 4y ago
  On most Linux distributions, it's basically the same. Your package manager tends to make no distinction between OS files and installed program files. FreeBSD does another approach, where user-installed packages go to /usr/local and don't get intermixed with the base operating system.
- bombcar 4y ago
  It's actually quite similar; it used to be that all the "system" binaries were in /bin and /sbin and the "other stuff" was in /usr/bin and /usr/sbin but that has not been true for quite a while on many distributions.
- ajsnigrutin 4y ago
  "back in the time", /usr could be on a network drive, and /bin had to contain just enough stuff to boot the system, set up networking and mount the /usr
  - codetrotter 4y ago
    Interestingly I actually did manage to make my /usr partition unmountable a few years ago on a system where I had changed the shell for the root user from /bin/sh to /usr/local/bin/bash and ever since then I have kept the default shell for the root user on my systems unmodified :)
    - euroderf 4y ago
      Back in PDP-11 days (Unix v.6) my boss managed to do a "rm -fr *" not in his personal bin (as he believed ATM) but in the system bin. Oooooops. (but Armando S was ready with functioning backups.)
      - jesprenj 4y ago
        https://www.ecb.torontomu.ca/~elf/hack/recovery.html https://www.ecb.torontomu.ca/~elf/hack/recovery.html
        salgernon 4y ago
        I've been in a similar state - I had a shell running but lost /bin/ls among other things; but I could use "echo *" and redirection to recreate an /etc/mtab.
quickthrower2 4y ago
Or chroot. And that is how docker was born.
pluc 4y ago
rm -rf /*bin/* would probably be more similar to deleting "program files"

liminal 4y ago

The surprising this is that deleting those folders on Windows 11 results in it presenting as Windows 10.

cainxinth 4y ago

https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/delete-system32 https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/delete-system32

hbn 4y ago

That's interesting that it started reverting into Windows 10. It makes you wonder how the thing is built. Like rather than modifying the code, Windows 11 is like a service that run on top of 10 and modifies a few UI things near the end of the startup process. Was that just some kind of hack due to time constraints? Or is the Windows codebase really that much of a delicate ecosystem when it comes to not breaking legacy software so they couldn't even modify the taskbar or file explorer without wrecking something?

anoonmoose 4y ago
Recently, I was required to use a PC that had Windows 11 on it. I tried to set it up like the rest of my computers, which involves moving the task bar from the bottom of the screen to the side, which I've done for years in Windows. Yeah, W11 doesn't support that. If you do some digging you'll find MS claiming it's a large technical lift that they have no current plans to do. What does this mean with regards to your question? Not much. But that regression in functionality, in an area that every other OS I use supports and has supported for years, definitely suggests the thing is a hack. In my humble uninformed opinion.
- stagger87 4y ago
  They have since added the ability to do this.
  - mikebridgman 4y ago
    Do you have a link? It seems it still requires a 3rd party app.
  - TehCorwiz 4y ago
    The location of the Windows 11 taskbar cannot be set through any UI options. They do not officially support changing the location of the taskbar according to available documentation. The upgrade message inside Windows 10 explicitly calls out this deficiency along with other before continuing. There are registry hacks that change the location, but this is unsupported. Docs: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/how-to-use-the-taskbar-in-windows-0657a50f-0cc7-dbfd-ae6b-05020b195b07 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/how-to-use-the-t...

Waterluvian 4y ago

In high school my friends and I had a basement drinking game called "System 32 Roulette." We had a fresh Windows 98 machine and you had to pick a file inside c:/windows/system32/ by random and forcibly delete it then reboot the machine. If the computer booted up and you could successfully get back to that folder, everyone else had to take a drink. If not, you had to finish your drink and then reinstall Windows.

whichdan 4y ago
My gut reaction was "wow that sounds boring" but then I reread it and realized I would have absolutely been excited about this in high school.
- Waterluvian 4y ago
  It was mostly a side attraction while we played Smash Bros or whatnot. But the best part is watching a super drunk person trying to install windows. It was hilarious.
  - dylan604 4y ago
    Was this off of CD-ROM or a stack of floppies? I think 3.11 was the last of the floppies, but memory is hazy around what 95 install media was. Pretty sure 98 was CD, but that could be a fun "bonus round" to force an install from floppy.
    - Waterluvian 4y ago
      It was a CD, but a really low quality burned CD that we eventually scratched the label side on, which stripped the data side off with it. So it was eventually hung from the ceiling with dental floss. We crossed out "98" with marker and wrote in "95", but to be honest, it didn't install anything by then.
    - hermitdev 4y ago
      I know I've installed Win95 off of floppies. Don't recall the exact number, but believe it was around 40-50 3.5" floppies. It came in a box about the length of a shoe box.

TacticalCoder 4y ago

Can I use this thread about Windows to vent a bit? I don't use Windows but what a gigantic clusterfuck of a turd. Mother in law now wants "two monitors instead of one". Whatever... I took a PC with Windows 8.1, bought a DisplayPort-to-HDMI adapter (GPU has got two output but her monitors are only HDMI) and it's kinda ok but then "Windows 8.1 support expires on 2023-jan-10". OK, let's buy Windows 11. I try to install Windows 11, had to create a boot disk or something (because why not) using Ventoy in wich I put the Windows .iso (just dd'ing the .iso as with Linux won't be sufficient apparently) and I happily launch the install. Hardware not supported by Windows 11. OK, I'll give my mom in law my AMD 3700X and install Windows 11 on that one instead (and I'll buy myself a 7700X). Same thing: "Hardware not supported by Windows 11'. WTF. That 3700X is a recent machine. And the error message it totaly uninformative: it just says "hardware not supported". Well, good thing a few years ago I made her switch her SME to Google Workspace / GSuite only. She and her employees are doing everything from the paid version of GSuite (something like 50 EUR / employee per year). Guess what's installing atm on that 3700X for my mother in law? Ubuntu. I dd'ed the .iso and the install starts just fine. It's insane: you want to give 145 EUR to Microsoft for their ad-ridden and keylogger infested spyware of an OS but they don't let you. Unhelpful error message. Instead of saying what is not supported, they just say: "Hardware not supported". So now it's going to be Ubuntu everywhere at her little SME and OS X laptops for when they're on the go.

vxNsr 4y ago
Hint: you gotta enable TPM This is the first result when you google Windows 11 requirements. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/windows-11-specifications https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/windows-11-specifica... All the rest of your complains boil down to being upset that Microsoft doesn’t support old stuff forever… guess how long old versions of Ubuntu are supported? (Hint it’s not forever) Also I could be wrong but pretty sure windows 8 still gets a free upgrade to Windows 10/11. They don’t advertise it, but the licensing server still accepts old licenses. Also if you want you basically can do the iso onto a usb…
- bombela 4y ago
  But the error message is completely optuse. How can you be so sure it's because of the TPM? The message says nothing but fuck you user. Also modern version of Ubuntu (and linux distribution in general) have no issues on decade old hardware (I have a couple machines that old).

rkeene2 4y ago

Lots of things break if you move "C:\Program Files" to a different drive (and make it a mountpoint), updates try to RENAME from a temporary directory into it, but fails because it's a different filesystem instance. IIS used to also kernel panic in this case.

popcalc 4y ago

Relevant: Suicide Linux https://github.com/tiagoad/suicide-linux https://github.com/tiagoad/suicide-linux https://esoteric.codes/blog/suicide-linux https://esoteric.codes/blog/suicide-linux

phist_mcgee 4y ago
Junior developers think this is what linux is like by default

anonu 4y ago

71k views. Seriously? Why... Useless topic.

rkagerer 4y ago

I've made hardlinks for mine to Prog64 and Prog32 for years and it's helped with ergonomics.

sriram_malhar 4y ago

I discovered the hard way that removing python 2.7 from Linux lead to the system being unbootable. I was trying to removing "unnecessary" versions!

Doxin 4y ago
At least with linux there's ways where you could fix that. I personally probably wouldn't as it's a hassle and my home folder is on a separate partition anyways, so a clean install doesn't lose me much. For those interested in the how anyway: You'd boot into a liveCD, Chroot into the installs root folder, and apt-get python2.7. If removing python breaks apt there's probably some flag to apt-get to get it to poke at a not-root folder you could use. Worst case you copy the python install from the liveCD, reboot, and then fix python from the booted system using a now-working apt.
cuteboy19 4y ago
It is possible that it only broke your de visual shell. Ubuntu used to have a lot of dependencies on python

_8j50 4y ago

Should be able to restore it via VSS.

sinuhe69 4y ago

The title should be “How to delete “Program Files” instead.

hilbert42 4y ago

I've been battling with Microsoft for control over my machine for decades and I don't use any of its OSes later than Windows 7, and then only to a limited extent since sufficient Linux and Android apps have been available to replace once-essential Windows ones. First, my requirements: what I need of an OS is a file launcher for my apps and a means of access to my files and not much else. I even consider networking and TCP etc. additional to my basic requirements—yes, I require them, but they ought to take the form of a separate installable application which I should be able to select from a range of similar products. I have no control over developers who develop apps for Win32/64 APIs so if I want to use their applications then I'm usually obliged to use MS Windows—and that's the problem—I'm forced to hack Windows as Microsoft puts hundreds of roadblocks in my way and makes it almost impossible for me to both achieve a minimum system optimized for my requirements and to stop the company spying on me or selling my personal data. I've never been happy with just Administrator rights as it's too restrictive, to hack Windows properly I want superuser rights, and to achieve at least some aspects of it, I'll sometimes go to the trouble of deleting unnecessary Windows features holus-bolus and or nuking or mutilating Microsoft's constant and increasing roadblocks that attempt me from doing so. Sometimes my efforts are very successful, other times not. The trouble is, for me an operating system is only a means to an end (I've little interest in the workings of Microsoft's proprietary code as its forever changing and I've too few resources to be fully proficient and constantly up-to-date year after year). This poses a dilemma, as (a) I often need a hack in a hurry, (b) I don't have the time or sufficient knowledge to spend ages reverse engineering/disassembling the code, and (c), as there is usually precious little really useful information about what I'm trying to achieve available on the internet, my attempts to achieve them are often by brute force and brutal (BTW, I'm never worried about crashing the OS as I can stream it from a backup in minutes and no data is lost as anything of importance is stored on separate drives). This is a huge subject of which not much appears on the Web, that's why this story's video is important even though it's very superficial and tells us very little of what we actually need to know to do the job properly. It seems to me that much of what I'm about to mention doesn't get mentioned because either websites are either scared of publishing stuff that's highly likely to end up producing an irreversible crash or BSOD and or that those who discover truly powerful ways of taming Windows deliberately do not tell others (knowledge is power after all). What follows is just a very short bullet list of ideas and things I do to give the flavor and it's far from complete (my notes on how I modify Windows for my own use extends to many hundreds of pages). Moreover, what I mention here does not extend to every Windows installation I do (they all have different uses and the need for integrity, security etc. varies with each installation). If anyone has any ideas, links to hack sites etc. then I'd be most grateful to hear from you. 1. First, although the Dark Web is likely to have much more sophisticated solutions that I'd really like to know about I don't go there for answers—certainly not so in recent years—for all the obvious reasons. 2. One thing that's obvious from the video is that the later versions of Windows 10 and 11 are much more solid operating systems than earlier ones, a BSOD on say Windows 10 is much less likely than on Windows 7. The video shows us that and it's also my own experience (whilst I only use Win 7 I've spent time attempting to hack later ones including Win 10 (but not 11) to the extent that I would consider them suitable to use (at this point I still consider it unusable). What's important here however is that whilst Windows 10 and up have more inbuilt Microsoft trash the fact that the basic operating system (its core) is now much more solid means that users can hack it with much less chance of total failure (the video clearly shows that). Remember, years ago Mark Russinovich made the comment that the essential Windows core files only amount to some 40 to 60MB, so I reckon all the rest is fair game for serious hacking. With that in mind we really need to ask how the fuck can a full version of Windows amount to an enormous 7 gigabytes or so (when one thinks about it, it truly is outrageous—so is the fact that we users are so acquiescent in complying with Microsoft and letting it get away with subjecting us to so much crap). 3. The video shows the problem of deleting both directories and files because the operating system locks them. Anyone who remembers the lack of adequate file/network locking in the '80s will recall all the effort that went into bootstrapping them to ensure that locked files cannot be casually unlocked. Unfortunately, whilst clearly important for stability, it can, at other times, be a curse such as when one's trying to delete some feature that Microsoft does not want you to remove. Of course, file and directory permissions play a big hand in this too. (I've many ideas for inventive hackers on how file-locking ought to be hacked.) This used to drive me mad until I found a quick, albeit dirty, solution. If you want to delete Windows directories or files locked by either file locking or permissions then boot up a Linux disk or Linux utility such as Parted Magic and use its file manager. Problem solved, we can now delete anything at will. When I was testing Windows 10 I deleted great swathes of files and directories and was essentially able to remove all the useless add-ons and utilities without affecting the stability of operating system in the slightest. This way, I even made many hacks to the desktop, some with considerable success, others not (I've more to do on this when I've time). I could provide much more info about it but obviously I can't do so here. That's not to say I'm very knowledgeable, in fact I know much less than I ought to know about it, and info from others about which Windows file does what and what the consequences are of deleting it, etc. would be very useful to know. 4. This brings me to the need for resources. In the past there were re-compilations of Windows CDs in which much of the dross had been removed and key setup changes made. This was a quick way of cleaning up much of Windows in advance of it being installed. I've not seen any of these disks for Windows 10 (although I've not looked of late), does anyone know what the status of such CDs is? What's needed for the game and adventurous like me is a dedicated Website that lists all these super-hacks together with info and user experiences. If anyone knows of any then please let me know. Here, I'm referring to sites that are likely to be headed with words to the effect 'Don't proceed further with this website if you are worried that taking our advice may brick your Windows OS', after all sites dedicated to rooting Android phones are full of such warnings. Such sites would also provide hacks such as how to change 'stubborn' permissions and unlock files (and advise which files the invaluable tool Unlocker cannot unlock and why it cannot do so—that said, I couldn't live with Unlocker, every Windows user ought to install it)! Similarly, we need a Windows 10 version of the now-defunct and once invaluable tool X-Setup Pro, it was invaluable because it actually showed the actual registry patches/hacks before it applied them (and the app had many hundreds of such useful patches builtin). I could go on as there's much more but it'll have to for now. Edit: the video presenter shows surprise that the Windows 11 user interface is built upon Windows 10 UI. This I did not know but I am not at all surprised as I do know that Microsoft has been up to these tricks since at least Windows 7. With Windows 7 Microsoft eliminated Quick Launch from the TaskBar but with a little effort it was easily brought back (I still use it, it's one of the first mods I do to a Win 7 installation). What I find so very damn annoying about this finding is that the Win 10 UI is alive and well and hidden within the Win 11 one. Thus, there is absolutely no reason why users should not be able to select a UI from an older (or previous version) when upgrading (here users should be able to retain the Win 10 UI). Clearly, this is only bloody-mindedness on Microsoft's part that they cannot do so. Think back to Windows 8 and Metro: imagine how much trouble Microsoft could have avoided if users who hated Metro could have simply selected/kept the Windows 7 UI. That this was not possible because of an internal Microsoft policy decision tells us much about its corporate strategy. I've claimed for years that Microsoft's policy of forcing disruptive change onto users without option is both deliberate and authoritarian. Unfortunately, this deliberate tactic of 'Disruption' is much of the reason for why there's so much trouble on the internet now. Simply, these arrogant bastards think they know it all when often they haven't a bloody clue.