4 ms·

In a few minutes you can make Windows 11 look pretty close to Windows 7 (or 10) by disabling personalization, content , widgets, new tab content. In edge disab

In a few minutes you can make Windows 11 look pretty close to Windows 7 (or 10) by disabling personalization, content , widgets, new tab content. In edge disable all of the new tools and bing integration. You’re right about the hassle of doing it manually, and I wish there were a global “Windows 2k mode” that ran the OS as lean as possible.

dannyw 3y ago
Pay for Enterprise and a lot of it is pre disabled. Others can be configured via group policy.
- t-writescode 3y ago
  How do you get access to enterprise? Last I looked, I believe you had to create a company-relationship with Microsoft to be allowed to do that and there was probably a lot more cruft to do. Edit: and a quick scan of the Microsoft website says that you need to "Contact Sales" still.
  - RajT88 3y ago
    For much of my career, I got free Enterprise licenses through an MSDN subscription through work. You can pay a similar amount to what your company pays for similar numbers of licenses across many OS's. Last I checked it was about ~500 USD a year. Sure, that's excessive for a single OS install, but if your company is footing the bill they usually don't care if you install on personal machines.
    - Semaphor 3y ago
      Huh, we have the action pack and I just checked, there’s indeed 10 Enterprise keys included. I should try to remember to ask my boss the next time I reinstall if I can grab one of those :D
  - WD40ForRust2 3y ago
    [dead]
jchw 3y ago
> In a few minutes That's a pretty big understatement to be honest. I don't use Windows anymore, but I still occasionally set up Windows for other people and there's so many annoyances that it's difficult to even enumerate all of them. Off the top of my head: - MSEdgeRedirect to stop Windows from opening Edge even when it's not your defualt browser. - Shutup10++ to quickly disable a bunch of crapware/unwanted features. (Some of these break things, too, so there is literally no way to make things "perfect".) - Have to remove a horde of advertising-ridden crapware too. Groove Music, Maps, etc. - Stopping the start menu from sending everything you type to Bing seems to be hard, too. I'm pretty sure there are multiple group policy items that sound like they would impact this, but I never seem to get the right one first try. It's kind of hard to find on Google too because it changes. - I do not know what the current best way to get Windows to stop trying to wake up computers for Windows Update at random hours (and often failing to do so.) I think there is a group policy option, but I think there's also a power options configuration (also in the registry obviously) that you need to change to maximally disable wakelocks. This one isn't necessarily Windows 11 specific, but it seems to have gotten worse over time. - A number of things are really hard to change: There are third party mods for the start menu and task bar, but they are not perfect at all; hacks that load the actual old start menu and task bar are limited and break with updates, unsurprisingly. You need to patch DWM to remove the window rounding behavior. And honestly, that still doesn't duplicate Windows 7 for me, and worse, the further you stray away the more likely things are to break during updates. The best I've found is Windows 10 LTSC but 1. I don't think consumers can legally license it (lol) 2. It doesn't work with a lot of software, e.g. Creative Suite has stopped supporting it I believe. So this solution sounds good on paper but it's also not always applicable. Lest you think paying extra for Windows 11 Pro for Workstations, just don't. It's nearly as heavy in crapware last I checked. It's kind of unbelievable that they still do that pre-installed app crap even if you pay them over $300 for the OS as if I fucking want it, but that's modern software for you. They literally won't sell you what you want at any price. (I also strongly believe that you should try to install Windows Firewall Control or some similar firewall before allowing the machine to reach the Internet. There's an amazing amount of non-sense that gets sent to the Internet regardless of whether you consent to it. Not sure that all of it is actually a huge privacy concern, but I don't really care anymore; at this point it's out of spite.)

dannyw 3y ago

Pay for Enterprise and a lot of it is pre disabled. Others can be configured via group policy.

t-writescode 3y ago
How do you get access to enterprise? Last I looked, I believe you had to create a company-relationship with Microsoft to be allowed to do that and there was probably a lot more cruft to do. Edit: and a quick scan of the Microsoft website says that you need to "Contact Sales" still.
- RajT88 3y ago
  For much of my career, I got free Enterprise licenses through an MSDN subscription through work. You can pay a similar amount to what your company pays for similar numbers of licenses across many OS's. Last I checked it was about ~500 USD a year. Sure, that's excessive for a single OS install, but if your company is footing the bill they usually don't care if you install on personal machines.
  - Semaphor 3y ago
    Huh, we have the action pack and I just checked, there’s indeed 10 Enterprise keys included. I should try to remember to ask my boss the next time I reinstall if I can grab one of those :D
- WD40ForRust2 3y ago
  [dead]

jchw 3y ago

> In a few minutes That's a pretty big understatement to be honest. I don't use Windows anymore, but I still occasionally set up Windows for other people and there's so many annoyances that it's difficult to even enumerate all of them. Off the top of my head: - MSEdgeRedirect to stop Windows from opening Edge even when it's not your defualt browser. - Shutup10++ to quickly disable a bunch of crapware/unwanted features. (Some of these break things, too, so there is literally no way to make things "perfect".) - Have to remove a horde of advertising-ridden crapware too. Groove Music, Maps, etc. - Stopping the start menu from sending everything you type to Bing seems to be hard, too. I'm pretty sure there are multiple group policy items that sound like they would impact this, but I never seem to get the right one first try. It's kind of hard to find on Google too because it changes. - I do not know what the current best way to get Windows to stop trying to wake up computers for Windows Update at random hours (and often failing to do so.) I think there is a group policy option, but I think there's also a power options configuration (also in the registry obviously) that you need to change to maximally disable wakelocks. This one isn't necessarily Windows 11 specific, but it seems to have gotten worse over time. - A number of things are really hard to change: There are third party mods for the start menu and task bar, but they are not perfect at all; hacks that load the actual old start menu and task bar are limited and break with updates, unsurprisingly. You need to patch DWM to remove the window rounding behavior. And honestly, that still doesn't duplicate Windows 7 for me, and worse, the further you stray away the more likely things are to break during updates. The best I've found is Windows 10 LTSC but 1. I don't think consumers can legally license it (lol) 2. It doesn't work with a lot of software, e.g. Creative Suite has stopped supporting it I believe. So this solution sounds good on paper but it's also not always applicable. Lest you think paying extra for Windows 11 Pro for Workstations, just don't. It's nearly as heavy in crapware last I checked. It's kind of unbelievable that they still do that pre-installed app crap even if you pay them over $300 for the OS as if I fucking want it, but that's modern software for you. They literally won't sell you what you want at any price. (I also strongly believe that you should try to install Windows Firewall Control or some similar firewall before allowing the machine to reach the Internet. There's an amazing amount of non-sense that gets sent to the Internet regardless of whether you consent to it. Not sure that all of it is actually a huge privacy concern, but I don't really care anymore; at this point it's out of spite.)