How to make Windows 11 more usable, less annoying
Updated: March 27,
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I have to apologize in advance. I really shouldn't be writing this article. Paradoxically, by
creating it, I am giving people the ability to use Windows 11, as this guide will remove a lot of the
pain points and pointless features of this operating system. Thus, instead of avoiding it, people may
actually choose to use it. Since I honestly believe you shouldn't be using Windows 11, I will achieve
the opposite of what I feel.
However, I am also aware that many people are forced to use Windows, for many pragmatic reasons. Not
everyone has the knowledge to use other things (like Linux), they may require it for specific games or
programs, they may need it for work, and so forth. I have started my
migration away from Windows. It's going
really well. But it's still a
massively complicated endeavor, and it takes a lot of time. For most people, it's easier to just tweak
an unruly operating system some, and get on with their lives. Thus, I thought, if users are going to
try to undo Windows 11's pointlessness anyway, they as might as well have a top-notch tutorial to do
that. And this is why we're here. Proceed.
Table of Contents
-
Why not Windows 11?
-
Before you install - prerequisites
-
Burn ISO to USB drive
-
Begin installation
-
User account setup
-
Post-install questions
-
Settings - check everything
-
Bluetooth & devices
-
Personalization - Taskbar
-
Personalization - Start
-
Personalization - Lock
-
Apps
-
Install Firefox
-
Default apps
-
App startup
-
Offline maps
-
Account - Sign in options
-
Time & language
-
Gaming
-
Privacy & security
-
General
-
Diagnostics & feedback
-
Inking & typing personalization
-
Activity history
-
Search permissions
-
Resource access
-
Services
-
Regedit - disable cloud search
-
Now, connect to the Internet
-
Launch Winaero Tweaker, finish cleaning
-
Disable Copilot
-
Remove unnecessary apps
-
Remove apps using winget
-
Remove apps using powershell
-
Microsoft Edge
-
Final app list
-
Set up Open-Shell start menu
-
Review/cleanup system autostart with Autoruns
-
Optional: Windows Defender
-
Optional: Windows Update
-
Optional: Other tweaks
-
Final product
-
Conclusion
Why not Windows 11?
I would like to spend a few minutes explaining my rationale. The answer is simple: Windows 11 brings
no value to the table. Whatsoever. From a functional perspective, it gives you what Windows 10 does.
From an ergonomic perspective, it's worse. From a privacy perspective, it's worse.
I have used Windows for some 30 years or so, ever since Windows 3.11. I still do. But every day, I
need to spend more and more time taming it, making sure that stupid features don't assail my senses. I
am also a highly pragmatic person myself. I choose technology based on my needs. Not the other way
around.
Windows XP was solid. Vista was pointless. It brought unrealistic hardware requirements to the
table, and as a consequence, it never got adopted. It was ignored. Windows 7 was Vista Improved. It
also brought significant improvement in 64-bit support compared to Windows XP. For me, this justified
the move - along with some new hardware. I switched from XP to 7 in .
Windows 8 was a
total failure. No surprise there. It introduced
"touch" to the desktop, something that
cannot work and will never work. I said it then, and
I will always say it - touch interfaces on a non-touch form factor are doomed to failure. Always and
forever. Windows 8 was like Vista. Ignored.
Windows 10 was Windows 7 TNG. From
my perspective, as I wrote back then, more or less the
same. But it didn't bring anything new or novel or important. This also aligns with the natural,
general slowdown in any meaningful advancement in raw CPU performance. In the 90s and early s,
every new generation of hardware brought big speed leaps, and software "grew" accordingly. But since
around -, it makes very little difference. Windows 10 didn't need much over Windows 7, and so,
apart from the latter going EOL at some point, there's nothing revolutionary here. In fact, Windows 10
has worse ergonomics due to its half-touch flat UI, and Settings is inferior to Control Panel. I only
switched to the new version of Windows 10 in late , early , and only because I replaced my
hardware (after roughly 8.5 years). But even then, the old desktop ran beautifully.
Now, there's Windows 11. It brings arbitrary hardware requirements, like Vista. But the actual leap
in CPU abilities is even less than going from 7 to 10. It has slightly improved ergonomics in some
areas, but also major regressions in many others. The menu is totally pointless. The file explorer
is/was slow. The context menu is pointless. And the list goes on.
And so, from a very logical perspective, there is no value to Windows 11. That's why
it's pointless. On top of that, there's the layer of forced
"mobilization" of the desktop, trying to turn it into a subscription-model adfest, which I consider an
insult to my intelligence.
Here's a table breakdown of what I just wrote above:
Migration
Pros
Cons
Windows 7 over Windows XP
64-bit support
Windows 8 over Windows 7
None
Start Screen
Windows 10 over Windows 7
None
Flat UI
Settings vs Control Panel
Online account annoyances
Automatic updates
Windows 11 over Windows 10
None
Performance
File Explorer performance
File Explorer usability
Start menu & taskbar
Context menu
Online account setup
Hardware requirements
Now, don't believe me? No need. DATA. That's what you need to look at:
Windows 11 adoption is rate is
much slower than Windows
10 (in the same relative time period).
That's it. QED. The same happened with Vista, the same happened with Windows 8. People may not be
that smart, but they are not that stupid either. Forget any emotion. Just focus on the simple facts.
Pure usability. There's nothing that Windows 11 does better than Windows 10. But it does many many
things worse.
To that end, I want to give you this guide that ought to help you tame Windows 11. Remember, this is
my recommendation. You can adopt bits of it, add to it, ignore it. This is how I perceive computing,
and how I think a desktop should behave. In essence, it means stripping away all the pointless, low-IQ
"modern" features designed for the average ape. And so we begin.
Before you install - prerequisites
There are several things you need to do before you begin the setup and configuration of Windows
11:
- Download the
Windows 11 ISO - I recommend
you use the English International version.
- Download
Rufus - We will use this tool to write the ISO to USB
media.
- Download
Firefox (full installer) - I intend to set
this browser up as my default.
- Download
ExecTI - We will need this lovely too to neuter some of
the Windows 11 annoyances.
- Download
Winaero Tweaker - We will need this
tool to change a lot of Windows 11 defaults.
- Download
Open-Shell - We will use this instead
of Windows 11 pointless Start menu.
- Download
Autoruns - We will
use this to disable a lot of unnecessary cruft.
Save these on a USB stick, we will need them BEFORE we go online in Windows 11.
Burn ISO to USB drive
The next step is to create bootable media. In Windows, you can use Rufus, a superb tool that comes
with lots of extra handy options. As I've outlined in
my review, it can also download the latest media for
you, so you don't need to manually grab the ISO file, and most importantly, it can skip certain steps
in the installer, including the pointless requirement for an online account.
Begin installation
Disconnect from network. Very important. That's step one. Now, start the system, follow the prompts.
In the International version of the system, the installer language will be English (UK). After the
installation, you can change this to anything you like. You can still set up the system as you see fit
(whatever region you want).
When it comes to Home or Pro, I would suggest Pro - if you have the right license. The reason is,
with the Pro version, you can skip the online account creation without too many problems, you can use
Group Policies to disable automatic updates and Windows Defender, and then some.
That said, I will demonstrate with Windows 11 Home on purpose, to show you how to handle the more
"difficult" version. All of the tricks you do in the Home edition are also applicable in the Pro
edition, with the added benefit that you can use the Group Policy Editor rather than raw registry
editing for most of the changes.
An example of what you can choose - I would never choose any keyboard layout
other than US, though.
User account setup
Now, the system will "hang". You won't be able to proceed with the Home user setup unless you have
Internet, because it wants to force you to create an online account. In the Pro edition, you will be
able to continue with "limited" account - which is a wrong phrase used to describe the superior local
account.
If you used Rufus and you ticked the box that says "Remove requirement for an online Microsoft
account", you won't see the screen above. We will get to what you will see in a second. Let's assume
you didn't tick the box and need to solve this manually.
Press Shift + F10. This will open a command prompt. Type:
OOBE/BYPASSNRO
The system will reboot. You will need to repeat the language, region steps. Then, you will still see
the network connect step, but there will also be a new entry that reads "I don't have internet". Click
on that, and you will be able to create a local account. If you used Rufus, then this is the step you
will see right away, instead of having to do that interim reboot.
The UI is a bit truncated in a virtual machine I used for this demo +
screenshots. Nothing to worry about.
Post-install questions
Next, the installer will ask several questions. If it can use your location, find your device,
diagnostics, inking & typing, ads, and ads ID. Choose No for all of these. I find the concept of
ads extra irritating, because why would you have ads in an operating system. Also, there's the whole
geo-cultural aspect of ads that I find totally alien. Perhaps I need to live in California to
understand it. Don't want.
After these questions, the system will finish its setup. Almost. You will get into a desktop. Do not
connect to the Internet just yet. There are still many, many things we need to do before we want to
allow this machine to connect to the Web. A lot of purification and taming.
Settings - check everything
The next step is open Settings, and go through every option, one by one. Everything. It's tedious
and pointless. No different than setting up an
Android smartphone, then again, the whole concept of
treating the desktop like a touch device is the pinnacle of pointless, and must be resisted with
gusto.
Bluetooth & devices
Turn Autoplay off for all media. There's no reason why anything should ever autoplay.
Personalization - Taskbar
My approach is to turn search off, remove Task view, remove Widgets. Remove any touch-related stuff,
and shift the taskbar to the Left side, the way it's meant to be. This is only the first step, and we
will completely replace the taskbar/menu, but that's later.
Personalization - Start
We won't replace the Start menu right away. The idea is to first disable annoyances, once we go
live, let it update itself, and then install Open-Shell. Therefore, my approach is first to turn off
any suggestions and recommendations in Start.
Personalization - Lock
Similarly, disable any "fun facts, tips, tricks and more on your lock screen". I mean,
seriously?
Apps
This section requires a lot of work. And it's a multi-step process. First, we will only tweak a
small number of things, like where to get apps - Anywhere means you can install desktop software, and
not be limited to the Store, which makes very little sense in the desktop space. Similarly, I turn off
any sharing or archiving or any similar "modern" nonsense. In general, this only applies to "modern"
Windows apps and not proper desktop programs, which are always, always superior to any touch-inspired
or touch-capable apps on a classic PC.
Install Firefox
Now, install Firefox - this is my
always-choice for a browser, even on the mobile. It comes
with lovely extensions, including Noscript and UBlock Origin (UBO), also in Android. So you can have a
proper, high-IQ experience on any platform, without solid privacy, and no waste of power and
bandwidth.
This is the reason why we grabbed the different offline installers earlier. We can install Firefox
without opening Edge and going online. No need to use it at all, if you don't intend to use it. Next,
go back to Apps.
Default apps
Click on Firefox, and click Set default to make it the primary browser for every Web-based protocol.
Change options manually if needed. Like I said, we will handle the removal of unnecessary apps a bit
later on.
App startup
This is super important. And also, a multi-stage process. First toggle off unnecessary stuff, like
Cortana. It won't work anyway in the local account, but there's no reason to have any pointless
processes running for no good reason. Later, we will use Autoruns and Winaero Tweaker as well as the
command line - winget and Powershell - to get rid of various unnecessary Windows apps and
components.
I don't allow Terminal to run, what's the point, this ain't Linux, nor am I a developer. I also
don't want anything to do with OneDrive, I don't need a security notification icon, and no "AI"
assistant. Later, these will be gone for good.
Offline maps
Why maps are a thing on a desktop/laptop, beats me. I disable any updates here.
Account - Sign in options
So much unnecessary biometrics stuff here. As I said in Android privacy & security guide,
biometrics are only good for identification not for authentication, but even then, why. There's even
something called Picture password, where you "tap" favorite photos. This is some Idiocracy level stuff
here. I don't know any five-year-olds who will be unlocking their non-touch desktops by "tapping"
favorite crayons, I mean photos. Use a password, and that's it. It's your local device. And if someone
has access to it, you have much, much bigger problems.
Time & language
I remove any text suggestions and spelling. I don't need any fancy software correcting my writing or
giving me suggestions on what to write next. Besides, this only probably works in "apps", so it's a
doubly useless feature for conventional desktop users.
You wouldn't expect AI nonsense under Time & Language, but it's there. Typing > Typing
insights, and then, Windows is using artificial intelligence to help. This nonsense is preselected.
Off.
Gaming
I turn off Game Bar and Game Mode. Useless on the desktop, placebo on the laptop. If you have a
reasonable device, any sort of performance tweaking provides marginal benefits at best. This is nothing
Windows specific, this is true for all and any operating systems. The defaults are perfectly fine for
most use cases.
The funny, ironical, perhaps even paradoxical thing about Game Mode that it's about turning things
off in the background - the very things that Microsoft turned on in the first place. On a standard,
old-school desktop, there's nothing running in the background except essential services. Thus, anything
that needs to be turned off - and can be - isn't necessary in the first place. You know where I stand
on data, privacy, telemetry, and such.
Privacy & security
This is probably the most important section. Now, I can't tell you what to turn on and off, as you
may want certain features (say like camera and microphone), but for me, most of the stuff is totally
unnecessary, and therefore, I toggle it all off. At best, I leave access on for desktop programs - and
not apps, which we will uninstall soon anyway.
There's a great deal here, so I will try to be precise.
General
I turn off the following settings:
- Let apps show me personalized ads by using my advertised ID.
- Let website show me locally relevant content by accessing my language list.
- Let Windows improve Start and search results by tracking app launchers.
- Show me suggested content in the Settings app.
Diagnostics & feedback
I set everything to off here, and we will turn off further telemetry later on. So, OFF then for:
- Send optional diagnostics data.
- Improve inking and typing - Send optional inking and typing diagnostics data to Microsoft.
- Tailored experiences - Let Microsoft use your diagnostics data for personalized tips, ads, and
recommendations. THIS, right here, is the epitome of greed. A paradox unto paradoxes. Diagnostics
and ads in the same sentence! What I wrote in my
telemetry article, right here. How can this even be
an option, beats me.
Inking & typing personalization
I turn the custom dictionary off - I don't see a need for it.
Activity history
This goes to off - who knows how this data may be used - looking at the diagnostics page above
...
Search permissions
Similarly, I don't want Windows to "meddle" in my search. I don't need any SafeSearch filtering,
definitely no cloud content, no online account, and no history of searches. Furthermore, since I don't
use Edge, the SafeSearch thing is rather unnecessary. I also find it funny yet sad that the
filtering - SAFE - focus is on "adult content". What about filtering war, violence, gore, politics, and
other nuisances instead? The scale of morality be tippin' like crazy.
One more setting available farther down that page is around search highlights and content
suggestions. Yet another place to turn pointless recommendations off.
Resource access
I turn off all of the following completely:
- Location
- Camera
- Microphone
- Voice activation
- Speech
- Account info
- Other devices (beacons)
- Notifications
- Calendar
- Contacts
- calls
- Call history
- Tasks
- Messaging
- Radios
- App diagnostics
I don't know what Automatic downloads stand for, to be honest.
Next, I also disable app access to all and any location:
- Documents
- Downloads
- Music
- Pictures
- Videos
- File system
- Screenshot borders
- Screenshots and apps
Please be careful when you go through the settings. For example, with Location, even if you set it
to off, there's a toggle that says: Allow location override. Make sure it is set to off, as you don't
want apps to randomly use location without your explicit consent.
If you do want to allow desktop programs to access certain resources, then keep the general toggle
on, turn it off for any app you don't want, and mark "Let desktop apps access" for each separate
resource.
Services
The next step is to disable some unnecessary services. To that end, we will use ExecTI, a superb
program that's on my
must-have list of programs for Windows, and which lets
you start programs with elevated privileges, and work around the obstacles that exist in the operating
system, namely, that it thinks it knows better than you and wants to prevent you from doing certain
things.
Double-click ExecTI, then in its command box, type services.msc. Now, this will launch the Services
applet, and you can now enable, disable, start and stop services. You need to be extra careful, though.
You could accidentally turn critical components off, and bork your machine.
We will only (for now) turn off the telemetry service - Connected User Experiences and
Telemetry.
Regedit - disable cloud search
Our next step is to turn off any cloud-related search. I've already outlined this trick in my
Windows 10
post-install guide, which I wrote after
having set up a desktop back in early . Actually, sadly, if I think about it, over the past decade,
more or less, I've already written no less than three separate, long, detailed, privacy-focused guides
for Windows 10:
privacy settings,
privacy guide and
ad annoyances, and now we need to do the
same for Windows 11. How the wheel of fate turns, eh. But we shall not succumb, and defend our
intelligence, we must.
Navigate to the following path:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Search
Here, in the right pane, create two DWORD keys, with the value 0:
AllowSearchToUseLocation
BingSearchEnabled
Now, connect to the Internet
You can plug the machine into the network. It will download a bunch of updates for various things,
including the apps and similar. Wait until it finishes, then reboot your machine for the second phase
of cleaning.
Launch Winaero Tweaker, finish cleaning
I am aware that you may not want to install and use a third-party tool to do some extra cleaning.
But this is a highly useful program, and it will save you time. Furthermore, it can run in portable
mode, and every setting in the program is explaining in detail, linking back to the Web article that
explains the fine details of the tweak, usually this or that registry change.
Here's the list of options that I go through and toggle in Winaero Tweaker:
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- Windows 11
-
- Disable background apps
- Disable Copilot
- Remove Windows Spotlight icon from Desktop
- Behavior
-
- Ads and unwanted apps
- Disable app lookup in Store
- Disable MRT from installing
- Disable User Folder backup to OneDrive
- Disable Windows Update (optional and use when needed)
- Desktop and Taskbar
-
- Context Menu
-
- Classic System Properties
- Microsoft Edge
-
- Settings And Control Panel
-
- Disable Online & Video Tips in Settings
- Windows Apps
-
- Disable Cortana
- Disable Windows Ink Workspace
- Privacy
-
Disable Copilot
I have no use for the "AI" hype. Thus, Copilot needs to go. P.S. Copilot won't work in a local
account user (awesome), but still, we need to be diligent. Now, I've already marked it through
Winaero Tweaker earlier, but those of you who do not want to use it, here's standalone Group
Policy + regedit way of doing it.
- In the Pro edition, Group Policy Editor > User Configuration > Windows Components >
Windows Copilot. In the right pane, enable the policy named: Turn off Windows Copilot. Done. No
more hype.
- In the Home editor, open regedit, and navigate to:
-
- HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows
- Keep the Windows sub-hive selected. Right click, New > Key. Name it WindowsCopilot.
Select it.
- In the right pane, right click, New > DWORD (32-bit) Value. Name it
TurnOffWindowsCopilot.
- Double-click on it, change the value data to 1 (identical process to above).
And that sorts it out.
Remove unnecessary apps
I don't like the default Windows 11 "apps" - for me, on the desktop, pretty much anything touch or
similar is pointless. Therefore, I like to remove these "apps", because they serve no purpose
whatsoever. We did tweak the permissions, but even so, I like to keep a simple, small, clean, tidy
list.
Remove apps using winget
To remove apps, you can use the GUI and manually uninstall them, one by one, or do a slightly faster
method. As I outlined in my Windows 11
follow-up review from several months back, you can use the
built-in
winget command, on the command-line (cmd) to quickly remove these
apps. However, I read in various forums that winget may need an update, and it might not run without
you opening the Microsoft Store first.
To that end, first try:
winget source update
Then try to run "winget remove [program name]". Here's a screenshot example, ignore the specific
list for the moment. What you need to see is how the command utility works, so you can do the same
thing.
Remove apps using powershell
However, if that does not work, we can use Powershell instead. Start a Powershell ... shell as an
administrator. Then, in the window, run:
Get-AppxPackage | Select Name, PackageFullName
This will give you a full list of installed apps. You can then decide what you don't need or want
from that list, and simply uninstall. You can uninstall for yourself, or for all users. I chose to do
the latter, to avoid any "reinstall" of apps at any point in the future.
What should you keep? Entirely up to you. In my case, the list of stuff to keep is very short.
Anyway:
Get-AppxPackage *name* | Remove-AppxPackage
The above command will find all matches for the string in between the asterisks - this is helpful as
it will remove any match, so if a particular app has multiple components, all of them will be removed.
For all users, you need an extra flag:
Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers *name* | Remove-AppxPackage
You can
save the list of removal commands above into a Powershell script, so that
should you ever need to repeat the process, it's ready. You may get an error or two, as some of the
components are considered core, and cannot be easily removed. This may also happen for Microsoft Edge,
as it's (usually) configured not to be removable by default. We will handle that shortly.
Microsoft Edge
Now, I think Edge is a
decent browser. Relatively speaking. Nothing beats
Firefox, but as a secondary browser, it can be a decent choice. I use it in that manner on my Linux
machines. However, recently, it's been affected by unnecessary bloat. In Windows, in particular,
there's
too much of a push to get people to use it. I hate that
approach. Push, shove. And thus, as a matter of principle, I don't use Edge in Windows. Linux, yes, but
Windows, nope.
It is possible you might not be able to remove Edge. If you try it through Add/Remove, the Uninstall
button will be grayed out. You may succeed with winget or Powershell, but if not, here's the full
sequence of steps.
To remove it, first, I had to change a registry setting. Go to:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOWNode\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\
Uninstall\Microsoft Edge
Then, in the right pane, double click on the REG_DWORD called
NoRemove, and change from 1 to 0. After that, the browser can be
uninstalled like any other app.
You can do the removal on the command line, or through the GUI, if you prefer:
Final app list
This is what I narrowed down the app list to - Calculator and Notepad really - and the latter will
also be gone once I install Notepad++ as a superior alternative. I did not remove the Edge Update app,
because I am going to remove the Edge update scheduled tasks a bit later. I also didn't get rid of the
WebView2 runtime, because it is (most likely) used to display various settings windows (like in
Android), and I didn't want to mess that up potentially. On their own, these two don't do much
really.
Set up Open-Shell start menu
I don't like the default Windows 11 menu. It's pointless. The worst thing is that you cannot see a
list of your apps right away - you get the pinned apps (which I never use), and recommendations (which
I hate). With these two disabled, as I've shown you in my various Windows 11 reviews, you get an empty
slab that serves no purpose whatsoever, and you need an extra click to see your apps. A waste of
energy. And so, much like we did in Windows 8, we will use a superior menu. Back then, it was called
Classic Shell and now it's
Open-Shell. Read the reviews, if you fancy.
Review/cleanup system autostart with Autoruns
Microsoft (formerly Sysinternals) has a few really great tools available. Process Explorer is one of
them, and Autoruns be another, coincidentally, both created by the same author. Linked early on in this
guide, it's the last component of our toolbox in removing stupidity from the operating system.
Autoruns will scan all of the auto-start/auto-run entries in your system, and tell you what
processes and programs are configured to run at the startup of your system, from boot to services to
logon. You can examine the system by category - logon, services, scheduled tasks, explorer, drivers,
known DLLs, and then some. Using this utility take skill - and you also need to be careful, because you
can potentially uncheck/remove important entries. But we can use it to examine our system in more
depth, and further remove annoyances.
So, be careful. Specifically, I'm interested in Scheduled Tasks, and here I will untick any
Microsoft Edge entries. Here's a screenshot of what the output looks like. If you don't see Microsoft
entries, you will need to enable that under Menu > Options.
Once again, be careful, and don't go ballistic. We've already mostly disable everything we don't
need, so there's no reason to blindly untick options, especially not Services. You could easily lock
yourself out of the system if you don't know what you're doing. Furthermore, way too many "Store"
services rely on seemingly innocuous dependencies, so you could end up with broken tools and programs,
and not know why.
Optional: Windows Defender
I find the use of real-time anti-malware pointless. Windows comes with a much, much better framework
in place called
Exploit Protection. I use it on my Windows
systems, and have used it since
EMET came about. This is the right approach to security, alas it's
grossly neglected and barely mentioned when it comes to system security (for Windows). If anything, I'd
recommend you learn a bit more about mitigations, and apply them.
You can only temporarily disable real-time protection. Notice the "scary" wording. Leaving your
device vulnerable. Not true. This may be the case, maybe, big maybe, under specific circumstances. Most
of the time, this is pure fearmongering. Not interested in any of that.
I don't want any anti-virus on my system, Windows Defender included. In the Pro version, you can
disable it through Group Policy Editor. Go to Administrative Templates > Windows Components >
Microsoft Defender Antivirus, and then in the right pane, enable the policy: Turn off Microsoft
Defender Antivirus.
In the Home edition, it's become harder and harder to disable this program. If you read my Windows
10 essential post-install tweak guide above, I could launch ExecTI, launch services.msc, and then
disable Defender. They made it harder since. Push shove. So I go for the radical option.
In this case, I opted to boot the system from a Linux live USB, and delete the Windows Defender
folders under Program Files and ProgramData. That way, there's nothing to run. The services will then
report errors, but hey. A simple toggle is all that takes to prevent this kind of behavior. But when
I'm not given a choice, I respond accordingly.
You could also try Winaero Tweaker (may or may not work 100%):
- Windows Defender > Disable Windows Defender
Optional: Windows Update
I personally do not like automatic updates. I find them ... risky, and I never apply them casually.
In the Pro edition, you can control this via Group Policy.Go to Administrative Templates > Windows
Components > Windows Update, and then set the policy labeled Configure automatic updates to
Disabled.
Back in Windows 7, you could use Notify, but let me download - that is no longer an option, so if
you want to be intelligent and meticulous about it, you will disable automatic updates, use Microsoft's
Show/Hide Updates tool to see what's on the plate for the given month, and only then run a check - as
it will automatically apply the updates, too (unless you're on a metered connection, and Windows
decides not to ignore that setting). I also always create a full system image, should an update mess
something up, I can easily restore.
With the Home edition, you don't have an easy toggle. You can disable services manually, but you
need to take into account that Windows will do its best to turn the updates back on - there's Windows
Update, Windows Update Medic Service, which "protects" the first, and then, there's something else that
will also occasionally check if the Medic is running, and if not turn it on. It's a hassle.
The best workaround is to use one of the third-party tool that handles it. There are many of those,
but to keep this tutorial relatively simple, let's stick with Winaero Tweaker. There, you can (try to)
turn the updates off by going to:
- Behavior > Ads and unwanted apps > Disable Windows Update.
Optional: Other tweaks
There are a few more things you can do, like
quicklaunch-like shortcuts.
Then, if you find the new File Explorer slow, you can try some of the settings I outlined in my
namesake tutorial. However, it does not seem
possible to remove the new Windows Explorer and restore the old one anymore, it seems (Windows 11
23H2). Thus, you might be stuck with the less snappy Explorer, which takes a good second or so to
render, no matter what hardware you have. C'est la vie. Modernity FTW!
A temporary trick you can try - and then combine with some more Winaero Tweaker tricks is to open
Control Panel, and hit the up arrow button. This will open the classic Windows Explorer with the ribbon
interface. Most importantly, it will be much more responsive.
Final product
And there we go, a less pointless Windows 11:
Conclusion
Here we are. Some three or four hours of rigorous tweaking later, you now have an operating system
that is less annoying and pointless than the original product. You basically need to turn off all of
the stupid smartphone-like stuff that has been added into Windows, everything that came to life more or
less after Windows 7. The process of desktop smartphonification is an insult to human intelligence, and
also a major ergonomic and productivity penalty. There's no real, practical value to any of this except
to entertain idiots, profile said idiots, and try to subvert the proven classic desktop formula into
something resembling a touch-device ape experiment.
Microsoft has some good products and solutions. Unfortunately, lately, it's been doing everything to
ruin the desktop, so that when "subscriptions" arrive one day, the idiots will be more likely to
apathetically nod their acquiescence through. If you're a nerd, someone who respects their privacy and
usability, and someone who does not follow pointless fads and trends just because, then it's your
duty to resist this attempt to turn you into a mindless swipe-swipe drone.
To wit, alas, this long guide. All of it, a pointless effort. The best thing is not to use Windows
11, but again, I understand you may be forced to - work, specific software, specific requirements,
inability to use other operating systems. That said, if you can follow this tutorial, you can probably
attempt Linux. It won't be easy, there ain't no miracles, but I've written hundreds of articles that
could help you embark on this journey. Stick with Windows 10, if you need to, test Linux, and maybe you
will be able to make the switch one day. My own migration success story is linked at the beginning of
this article. Have a look, and hopefully, this will be a useful exercise. See ya.
Cheers.
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