>I don't need: - printer/fax/phone drivers - probably many more drivers Those aren't a problem. Disk space is ultra-cheap, and those drivers aren't consuming

>I don't need: - printer/fax/phone drivers - probably many more drivers Those aren't a problem. Disk space is ultra-cheap, and those drivers aren't consuming any significant amount of space in the era of 1TB SSDs. Since you don't use those drivers, they're not consuming any CPU resources. Same goes with all the apps you don't use, though to a lesser extent (apps can be pretty huge). Drivers are the least of your problems. >- all telemetries That's a problem. It's not the only problem as far as computers being much slower than they need to be though; it's just the way modern software is written. But the telemetry does add to the problem, but more importantly introduces other problems besides performance.