This is a kind of poll, questionnaire re. LITE versions of Windows, trimmed, optimised for DAW work and some gaming on the side.

I've been seeing 'Ghost' 10,11. Tiny ... etc.

Please advise suggestions for a slim version of Windows for DAW and everyday use ?

Thanx ^_^

 

I honestly wouldn't waste too much time with that. If you get the most recent Windows 11 and use a reliable bloat-stripper app, you should be good to go.

There's a few on here giving outdated advice like messing with prioritizing resources for "background services", etc., or copy pasting AI slop responses. I would ignore all of that.

I'm a full-time producer and I have wasted a lot of time tinkering with Windows settings. Aside from the basics, you'll gain nothing by over-tweaking your setup. Many of the guides might end up messing with important features or are focused on gaming, not music work.

 

Which tool would you recommend? O&O Shut up10++?

 

all those lite builds have problems with updates and dependencies of features removed,
save yourself trouble and waste of time troubleshooting things,
just use regular Windows Pro, maybe one feature cycle behind (for ex. 24H2 instead of 25H2),

if you have decent PC specs, you won't see noticeable performance improvements anyway,
if you're concerned about telemetry and spying, get something like NetLimiter and block network for any suspicious process you want,
also you can manually pause Windows Updates using simple registry entries,
O&O ShutUp is also fine, because it only disables things, not remove them, so doesn't break future updates