Use Windows 10 LTSC IOT. It's already fairly slimmed down so it's good enough to be a daily driver. It's also supported until at least 2028 if memory serves, possibly longer?
If you want to go further, something like https://www.ntlite.com can be used to remove unnecessary services.
I had problems trying to run prior LTSC builds. They get security updates, but not feature updates. After a few years, some consumer software (games in particular) often start having problems because they are built assuming you run a consumer edition that is never more than a year or so behind.
> They get security updates, but not feature updates.
Well, obviously that's a feature, not a bug. Seeing as how 95% of "new" MS features seem to be some kind of spyware or advertising.
> After a few years, some consumer software (games in particular) often start having problems because they are built assuming you run a consumer edition that is never more than a year or so behind.
Any games in particular? I've been running IOT LTSC for about 1.5 years now and have had 0 issues, including gaming. Any issues were related to having to update Nvidia/AMD drivers or C++/.NET runtime updates and not the OS itself.
LTSC IOT is pretty new still, I wouldn't be surprised that an 18 month old build isn't quite having problems yet.
But by the end of 2020, there were a number of games that just wouldn't work on 1809, which was the most recent LTSC build available at the time. Even things like Gamepass flat out did not work.
It's all moot to me though, the WSL2 improvements in Windows 11 are enough to not want to go back.
I haven't reviewed this particular repo, but I've seen a bunch of these "de-bloat" scripts that do sketchy things, including from people calling themselves "ntdev labs" before. Removing annoying built-in apps (malware?) is one thing. But removing it by bypassing ACLs on system files is another. You don't want to leave your Windows image in a non-supported state which might compromise future Windows security updates from working.
Honestly I think a better answer is to not use Windows, but I'm aware that's not an option for some.
Yesterday, I was trying to delete bunch of crap from my windows 10 setup, because windows is just chewing through HD space like nothing. Gigs of space are eaten by temp files, caches, backups....in most circumstances you can't even delete them. Windows is taking ~6GB and I don't even use them, apart from calculator.
Well, at least this one is open source. The last couple of times scripts like this have popped up it's been just "trust me, bro!".
As Windows has started to integrate more of its own services together, I'm curious what this will end up breaking. Obviously everything xbox related until you reinstall it.
"Slim down windows 10/11" scripts have existed since each OS's release. Made by a variety of people over a variety of years. Most of them weren't open source and documented, many were just raw executables thrown around through MediaFire links or so on.
This is just what I could find in a few minutes. Some are more privacy-focused, some are more de-bloat focused. Some add new features or enable new tweaks. Some are flexible, some are one-and-done. They're everywhere since Win 10 released.
If you want to go further, something like https://www.ntlite.com can be used to remove unnecessary services.
Development stopped in 2021 tho.
And it's already slimmed down enough to be a decent daily driver, without having to bother with 3rd party scripts.
Well, obviously that's a feature, not a bug. Seeing as how 95% of "new" MS features seem to be some kind of spyware or advertising.
> After a few years, some consumer software (games in particular) often start having problems because they are built assuming you run a consumer edition that is never more than a year or so behind.
Any games in particular? I've been running IOT LTSC for about 1.5 years now and have had 0 issues, including gaming. Any issues were related to having to update Nvidia/AMD drivers or C++/.NET runtime updates and not the OS itself.
But by the end of 2020, there were a number of games that just wouldn't work on 1809, which was the most recent LTSC build available at the time. Even things like Gamepass flat out did not work.
It's all moot to me though, the WSL2 improvements in Windows 11 are enough to not want to go back.
Honestly I think a better answer is to not use Windows, but I'm aware that's not an option for some.
As Windows has started to integrate more of its own services together, I'm curious what this will end up breaking. Obviously everything xbox related until you reinstall it.
https://www.ntlite.com/
https://github.com/Sycnex/Windows10Debloater
https://github.com/Disassembler0/Win10-Initial-Setup-Script/
https://github.com/builtbybel/debotnet
https://github.com/W4RH4WK/Debloat-Windows-10
https://github.com/crazy-max/WindowsSpyBlocker
https://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10
https://www.w10privacy.de/english-home/
https://github.com/Raphire/Win11Debloat
https://github.com/ChrisTitusTech/winutil
https://www.revi.cc/revios/download/?method=playbook
(and in case that scares you, there's also this)
https://jspaint.app/