Windows 11 without all the rubbish

Engin

Engin

Proactive member
Joined
Aug 9, 2022
Messages
101
Reaction score
301
Location
London
I work for a small company that sells refurbished computers. As part of our service we send out USB thumb drives that let you reinstall M$ Windows. We use a program called Rufus to create the content on the thumb drives.

The nice people at Rufus have recently created a new version of their program that creates a thumb drive. The new version takes out a lot of the rubbish Microsoft puts onto your hard disk nowadays.

If you are thinking of reinstalling Windows 11 on your PC or laptop, consider downloading the Beta version of the program and not putting up with all the spyware that thebig American company wants to Subject you to.

For the Techies, part of the changeling follows:
Version 4.14 (2026.04.??)
Windows User Experience improvements:
- Add a "Quality of Life" option, to disable Teams, Outlook, Copilot and other Microsoft forced nuisances
- Add a Silent installation option, that automatically, and WITHOUT PROMPT, installs Windows on the first detected disk
- Add an option to copy 'SkuSiPolicy.p7b' to the ESP on installation (please refer to KB5042562 for more info)
- Add tooltips for all the dialog options
 
I forsee a possible problem in that Windows has components specifically designed to restore it to how Microsoft intend it to be if certain settings are changed or programs removed.
 
Eeyore said:
I forsee a possible problem in that Windows has components specifically designed to restore it to how Microsoft intend it to be if certain settings are changed or programs removed.
Click to expand...
There's only one way to find out.....

If I get a chance I'll pull a machine aside and test install, run the machine for a bit, then try updates, but to be honest its gotten to the stage at work that we are so pissed off with Windows that we decided to move to Ubuntu, so testing this would be a low priority.
 
I own a high end gaming pc,for my racing games.
Quite happy to have windows 11 on it.
Can do my racing games,read emails,most important go on here.
It can do a lot more than my braincell can comprehend,so dont use the other features apart from snipping tool.
Did add 2 extra hard drives though,thanks to google :ROFLMAO:
 
Once you’ve installed this new healthy version of Windows 11, will it not reinstall all of the bloatware the next time you try to install the plethora of updates that Microsoft continuously push out?
 
I
JonnieP said:
Once you’ve installed this new healthy version of Windows 11, will it not reinstall all of the bloatware the next time you try to install the plethora of updates that Microsoft continuously push out?
Click to expand...
I can't imagine it will reinstall these components that it Disables, but in answer to your thoughts, I'm going to contact gge bloke who developed a Rufus to ask him the question.
 
Please help me. Windows 11 has now filled up my new computer. Hundreds of Gbytes of memory have disappeared, probably into old update records that I can't see. I deleted 10GB, but the available memory hardly increased at all.
What can I do?
Is there an easily downloadable ad free and virus free EXE that will clean things up?
 
Windows 11
Click on the Windows icon at the bottom of the screen.
At the top of the box that appears type 'Disk Clean-up' in the search box
Hit return
Disk Clean-up will appear.
(to make it easier to find next time right click on the Disk Clean-up icon that appears on the task bar and click 'pin to taskbar'. Then it is always there ready to use.
Click on the boxes for the stuff you want to remove. Then click 'OK'

Windows 10

 
Engin said:
I

I can't imagine it will reinstall these components that it Disables, but in answer to your thoughts, I'm going to contact gge bloke who developed a Rufus to ask him the question.
Click to expand...
Email sent to Mr Rufus.

Let's see if we get an answer.

Meanwhile I'm starting to think AGF needs a 'technical support' section.
 
Wow! Got a reply from the Rufus guy, but I think he's having a bad day......

To paraphrase, 'Rufus will disable those functions on install only but has no mechanism to stop them being enabled later'.

However, my thought is that there are other apps out there that do disable these functions on a running installation. Winhance is such an app. So, Rufus at the imaging stage, Winhance or similar if and when Windows updates re-enable.

I'm looking after mum today and she's asleep, so lots of time for AGF. Maybe I need an indoor hobby.....
 
whathesmeg said:
Windows 11
Click on the Windows icon at the bottom of the screen.
At the top of the box that appears type 'Disk Clean-up' in the search box
Hit return
Disk Clean-up will appear.
(to make it easier to find next time right click on the Disk Clean-up icon that appears on the task bar and click 'pin to taskbar'. Then it is always there ready to use.
Click on the boxes for the stuff you want to remove. Then click 'OK'

Windows 10

Click to expand...
I won 3GB. Still only a drop in the bucket but useful, thanks
 
Engin said:
Wow! Got a reply from the Rufus guy, but I think he's having a bad day......

To paraphrase, 'Rufus will disable those functions on install only but has no mechanism to stop them being enabled later'.

However, my thought is that there are other apps out there that do disable these functions on a running installation. Winhance is such an app. So, Rufus at the imaging stage, Winhance or similar if and when Windows updates re-enable.

I'm looking after mum today and she's asleep, so lots of time for AGF. Maybe I need an indoor hobby.....
Click to expand...
I expect these later updates to be either in the boot file or the partition windows creates.
I cleared my brothers pc with win11 by installing an old version of linux and installed win7.
The usb keyboard and mouse work but an update to the usb drivers disables them!
I have to reinstall to get them working again but they do not recognise a flash drive.
Would a version of win11 on the thumb drive work as a new install?
 
@Enfield2band Windows 11 on rhe thumb drive would be used to install Windows 11 to the PCs hard drive. If you are going to do this, for God's sake, make sure you're installing to a Solid State disk or (preferably) an NVME. If he has an old mechanical rotating dusk, replace it.

Rufus gas the option to disable Microsofts rules that stopped Windows 11 being installed to older machines,, so your brother machine may run it.

The other thing to watch out for is that you may need to enable your brothers PC to boot from USB, which if required, is set on the BIOS.
 
This is one reason I like Mac OS: the system just works all the time on my M4. I have a high-end PC as well, but mainly just use this for games; everything else, like editing, is done on my Mac
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top