Worst thing about 12 is that they're about to use the AI tech to scan everything on your machine for potential
threatful or explicit content and they didn't define what that means in their opinion.

So if you store "private" pictures/videos from you and your girl, there could be a possibility
that it'll be flagged as abusive content & get reported to whatever institution (as I read somewhere else).

Same could apply to cracked software, downloaded movies, etc. so whatever you define as private
isn't private anymore as soon as you install Windows 12 and go online with it.

There's a reason why I disabled Windows from updating itself a couple of years ago.

A properly modified Windows 11 is the only solution I'll go for my next PC refreshment
but I'm still trying to figure out some issues that occour after removing things like cortana
& most of the spy processes. Removing defender and their new AI api from the image works
flawlessly already, so no file scanning on my end anymore.

 

I wouldn't take that risk, bro.

 

I found an entry in one of the most recent 23H2 builds called "Windows AI Machine Learning API"
and I could successfully remove it with no issues.

The thing is, in most cases I don't turn off but I remove that suff from the Windows image completely.
That way it doesn't even get installed.
In the case of Defender though I had to add some additional registry modifications to prevent MS from reinstalling
it throught windows update and that worked perfectly on my end so I think there could also be a way
to prevent MS from reinstalling AI stuff afterwards but thats someting I just don't know atm.


If you're interested, this is my personal log file from my last 23H2 test build:

Spoiler: Win_11_23H2.22631_NoStore

Integrated:
.NET Framework 3.5
.NET Framework 4.8.1
.NET Core Desktop Runtime 3.1
.NET Desktop Runtime 6
.NET Desktop Runtime 7
Windows PowerShell 7.3.4 x64
Microsoft DaRT 11.0 Tools
Microsoft DirectX 9.0c
Microsoft Visual C++ Runtimes (2005-2022)
Mozilla Firefox 110.0.1 x64
StartAllBack 3.6.14 (Patched-r4e)
HashTab (shows hash values in file properties)
VersionInfoTab (shows version info like in XP/7 for *.dll & *.exe files)
Custom Themes & Wallpapers

Modified:
UxTheme library to support 3rd party themes

Removed:
Windows Store & Store Purchase App
Microsoft Edge + Edge Update
Edge DevTools Client
SmartScreen
OneDrive
Biometric Service/Support & Face Recognition
Windows Hello (BioEnrollment)
Cloud Identity Service
Cloud Desktop
Telemetry Client
Content Delivery Manager (Sponsored Apps)
ParentalControls
Defender, System Guard, SecHealthUI & Security Center
Skype ORTC
Consent UX
Retail Demo Content Profile
Windows AI Machine Learning API
Windows CallingShellApp
CEIP
Location Service
Windows Mail
Windows Mixed Reality

Enabled:
Local user account setup support (online ms account not required)

Disabled:
TPM/SecureBoot/RAM requirement
DefenderAuditLogger
DefenderApiLogger
CloudExperienceHostOobe
Diagtrack-Listener
Auto-Reboot on BSOD crash
Auto Installation of Teams
Chat Symbol on task bar
Telemetry, Experimentation, Location Services
Let Windows & Cortana collect Contacts/Writing Data
Search - Bing Results & Cloud Search

Included:
Updates till 2023.11
Windows Media Codecs

Included Apps:
Calculator
Notepad
Paint
Terminal

Removed Apps:
Alarms
Bing News
Bing Weather
Camera
Clipchamp
Communications Apps
Cortana
Dev Home
Family
Feedback Hub
Gaming App
Get Help
Get Started
Maps
Office Hub
Outlook
People
Photos
Power Automate Desktop
Quick Assist
Screen Sketch
Solitaire Collection
Sound Recorder
Sticky Notes
Teams
Todos
Web Experience
Xbox Game Overlay
Xbox Gaming Overlay
Xbox Identity Provider
Xbox Speech To Text Overlay
Xbox TCUI
Your Phone
Zune Music
Zune Video

But this somehow broke the search function in the start menu when using StartAllBack
so I have to figure out what I did wrong in my next test builds.

What I can say for now is, this modified windows was running properly on a very low spec test system
with only 1GB of Memory and a 2 core processor.

Removing Defender had the biggest impact on the performance and I assume the future defender
will also be that part, that constantly scans your file system using new AI technology.

 

Last edited: Dec 2, 2023

Always keep in mind MS is making Windows to make money and 90% of people who won't ever run any music programs and plugins. Nothing but browser, music/video player, games, and Office. That's all they care of. That's my main problem with Windows - you can't really customise it to your liking, according to what you do with it. It used to be kinda OK with XP and even 7 to a degree, but 10 and on is just so un-customisable, set in stone the way they think we should like it, for the averagely intelligent user. This is not without reason... They just want obeying sheep who don't ever touch anything in the OS, god forbid you want to adjust anything, it is so hard to find shit in W these days. There used to be a thing called "Control Panel" and you could adjust every aspect of the OS from it easily. People used to have a shortcut on the desktop to it. Now the process of finding something is so convoluted it hurts. Everything used to be a few mouse clicks away in XP. FIle explorer was much better and easier to use, too.

omfg I'm ranting like hell .... sorry guys! Never drink and post stuff on the internet!

@r4e yes Windows Defender must be not even installed on a music/video production PC. It's also so annoying, not just a resource hog.

 

Last edited: Dec 2, 2023

How are you doing this? I've tried on Win10 but always failed.

 

I'll hold on to WIndows 10 for as long as I can (as long as the software I use supports it) and then I'm gonna switch to Linux for good.

Windows has been dead to me for along time now, ever since they started doing that "OS as a service" bullshit. Just give me a basic operating system that doesn't spy on me or force updates on me, doesn't force online accounts on me and lets me be the one in control and I'm happy. And since you don't get that with Windows anymore I'm ignoring new Windows releases from now on.

 

Every other release of Windows tends to be decent, so maybe this will be good too?
The biggest thing could be something on par with Rosetta for the new wave of ARM-based processors coming out.

 

it's pretty straightforward (a group policy edit), but only in the professional or enterprise versions

 

don't worry free and mandatory anti-viruses in bill's prisons, so you'll never get sick of windoze.

 

I think Frank Zappa summed it up perfectly, looking into the future and warning us about Windows 12.

 

They have to keep updating Windows to keep up with hardware - you have 1TB ram and a 500TB SSD drive? Windows will manage that for you and leave you with 1GB ram and 500GB storage free to hopefully run Office 2024.

 

A father in Germany had photos of his unclothed small children on the beach on his computer. Taking photos of your unclothed children on the beach is perfectly normal, at least in Germany. However, the father had not taken into account that the photos were automatically synchronized with his MS Cloud account. Due to the fact that MS is constantly running surveillance programs against child pornography on its servers, the photos, which in MS's opinion were offensive, were reported to the FBI.

One morning around 5am, the father's front doorbell rang and a horde of police and German Federal Bureau of Investigation agents had a warrant to search and seize all of his electronic devices, computer, cell phone, etc.

That was a few years ago. But with the speed of the German authorities, the man still hasn't got his devices back. If ever.

And a suspicion of child pornography sticks...

 

It's like they've given up on Windows.

"Operating systems? Too expensive to compete with Apple and Linux. Let's just rip off one more generation of people who are too old to switch away from Windows and drop the OS business by 2036."

 

What tool are you using to make custom ISOs?

 

Thats why no one should use an online windows account and that's why I always enable local account creation
in my Windows images. As I know they disabled that option in the home edition of Win11 and made it complicated
for users of Pro/Enterprise but with a little tweak this issue can be fixed.

If you want to go the easy way, there's a tool named StopUpdates10. It has a few ads but works perfectly
to pause updates until 2099 or disable them completely on Windows 7, 10 & 11.



In Windows settings (Win11) it looks like this then:



And if anyone is interested, I modded/patched StopUpdates10 to become completely AdFree

I'm using several.

MSMG ToolKit:
For integrating things like redistributables, MS DaRT tools (boot image) and some programs/custom settings

NTLite:
For doing most of my settings, applying policies & reg tweaks and for removing Apps/components

NSudo:
To run XYPlorer with Trusted Installer/System privileges to modify the mounted images manually,
adding themes, custom files, wallpapers, automation scripts to add some extra settings that only can be applied
after windows setup has finished and to remove leftovers from MS Edge & others that aren't supported by NTLite.

I also have written some batch scripts to run dism to apply some custom tweaks without having to do anything but run 'em.
That way I can quickly add some basic settings on new images that I want to give a test install (VM) before modifying anything.

 

Last edited: Dec 3, 2023

Easy for me. But for online gamers?
I would like to back up what you say about the use of AI being particularly dangerous.
So far at least humans still seem to be involved. And even that is of little use.
It will certainly take a little longer to implement common sense in an AI than to get natural language from a chat bot.

KI may take the following to the next level:
The father with pictures from his children is not an isolated incident. It happened again, but not once but ...
"Dr. Windows" a german blogger who is Windows friendly as you can imagine, posted in the following article, he has got hundereds of incidents of this kind reported to him:
https://www.drwindows.de/news/fotos...rst-kam-die-kontosperre-dann-der-staatsanwalt

Spoiler: Translation of the first part...

We have often talked here about the problem of Microsoft accounts being blocked due to allegedly illegal files on OneDrive. Today I would like to tell you about a case that is particularly blatant, especially for the person affected.

One thing first: even if, for hopefully understandable reasons, no names can be mentioned in this article and no documents can be shown: I have all the important documents on hand and have been able to convince myself of the truth of the matter, otherwise I would not be addressing such a sensitive topic here at all. I am less interested in scandalizing the matter than in raising awareness of the problem and highlighting the risks.

If you are not yet familiar with the earlier reports, you can read the "prior knowledge" required for an overall understanding here:

 

Online Gamers still can game online with a local account. I'm also gaming from time to time.
You don't need an online account to go online but if you once started to use an online MS account,
you always have to be online to even beeing able to use your PC (if no other local account exists).

I'm online most of the time with my local account. The difference is, files/settings are stored on
your hard drive only and not in microsofts cloud.

For some reasons (probably to make users dependent on microsofts services) MS tries to force users
to create online accounts but when you do so, you basically sell your PC's soul to them and you
give up on beeing in control of your stuff.

My theory:
When the AI file scanning stuff arrives, stories like the one from that german father won't only happen to
users who synchronized their files with the cloud but for everyone who uses defender as a security solution
and especially those with online ms accounts.

The only option then is to use a modified windows without defender, cloud services, etc. & with local account

 

Last edited: Dec 3, 2023

I wonder if MS are actually going to implement this. At the start of September, Apple announced they were cancelling their iCloud scan tech and would instead develop never-leaves-your-device software, so '''parents''' can block nudity on their kids' phones.