Before we start, this a thread about the latest Windows, not Linux, not macOS. And if you just want to moan about how "M$ suxzs!" leave that out as well. Or spyware this or surveillance that and telemetry too. We know.

Beginning of the article:

Now I know the various stripped down editions exist, some are very good for a special use computer. Most installations are general purpose, so sometimes the amount of removal is too much. Slipstreaming your own is a lot of work and in my opinion is only worth it if you're going to need 10+ installations for specific (say, business) use.

So far the standard "restore win 10 start menu and taskbar" and "disable telemetry" approach works for me without compromising usability. But shit's getting more obnoxious, there's no denying that. And I vastly prefer 11 for some under the hood improvements, virtualization enhancements, better WSL2, and such. A lot of the stuff the debloaters would remove (or their dependencies)

Here's the full article, the bit about Enterprise 11 is perhaps the highlight.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/08/windows-11-has-made-the-clean-windows-install-an-oxymoron/

What do you think?

 

I also don't know what's happening exactly. But lately I'm noticing a strange rise in Edge's components. Probably MSoft losing it over yet another fail with the browser wars?
The funny thing I was considering trying Edge like a year ago, but not now. It should be at least similar to Chrome because it's based on Chromium. But somehow they've managed to fuck up thinks yet again. There's a kinda disturbing morbid credit to give to MSoft for that.

Let's remember for clarity's sake the regular Enterprise version is the biggest.
But the less bloated LTSB/LTSC are also called Enterprise. Probably helpful for future posters here

 

I don't use really use Edge or Chrome so I can't really opine, but Edge by itself is fairly snappy and you can disable all of the stuff that makes it slow: it really likes external services (translation etc.). Chrome does as well and it's harder to clean up in that regard. the actual browser engine is of course solid.

It is good for MS sites though (surprise surprise!), I mainly use it for their developer pages where it shines and of course Visual Studio et al like using it as default so you can't really escape it. But thank FUCK it's no IE.

I don't think Pro is bad, but yeah, there is more shit in there. Most of it can be justified if you use them, like I do.

 

You're right here about Enterprise. But if the base install is clean, and the extra stuff is useful, like in Pro I'll probably switch to that.

Do note that I leave all of the Core Isolation stuff, TPM etc etc on. I don't know if that would affect things and in what way. But with Windows security I'm not taking any risks.

And 11 is _different_ in memory usage... it looks like it's eating up more than 10 but to me it's just caching things way more aggressively than before. Also the fancy "power saving processes" stuff is more aggro too.

One thing that's a fucking hog for resources is the new Files app, while nicer to use (tabs yay) I still avoid it and stick to Groupy for tabbing windows.

Funnily none of the Stardock stuff broke, which was a massive surprise, and Explorer patcher works as well so I don't have to put up with the new taskbar which might{/i] be OK in the future, but it sure as hell isn't now.

 

@saccamano apparently reading the first couple of short sentences of the post was too much of a challenge? But nooo, you just had to start ranting, thereby torpedoing any chance of, you know, useful discussion?

But whatever, keep on if it makes you feel better. Don't fucking care.

 

Well, I dunno 'bout you but it looks like a discussion to me. Quite honestly I have no fucks to give about it. But if it makes u happy then...

 

I don't know if this was posted before, but Focusrite has some comprehensive guides for Windows 10/11 and macOS.
https://support.focusrite.com/hc/en...62-Optimising-your-PC-for-Audio-on-Windows-11

 

being both Windows and MacOS user, it's uneasy to judge what Microsoft is doing with Windows 11 now,

on one hand, majority of users want coherent+cohesive operating system with all the useful stuff included, so having Edge, Office, OneDrive and other things included (or within one-click-install reach) can be useful for some,
on the other hand, significant number of users are able to tailor their system to their specific needs, and they would welcome bare bones system to build on top,

Microsoft (unlike Apple) is not able to give "full" app toolset "for free" within Windows OS (because Microsoft can't you sell ridiculously overpriced hardware), which is where the mess really breaks down,
those two completely different approaches result in mediocre compromise of Windows Home and Windows Pro, neither being that great to go with,

speaking of various cutdown/streamlined third-party Windows builds, well, they work fine untill you run into some specific dependency (like for ex. Acrobat requiring spooler service which is removed in GhostSpectre builds), which sometimes is fixable, but sometimes not,
which also shows why Microsoft can't really strip down Windows to base functionality because literally nobody knows what kinds of dependencies are used by what (even first-party) services and modules, not even talking about backwards compatibility with other software and driver hardware,

as I see it, it's ultimately about user:
if you need OS for 1-2 specific tasks, then go ahead and cutdown all the bullshit yourself, block all the network access (on your network as well as host OS) - PiHole and NetLimiter are your friends there - and you'll have solid experience for years,
but if you don't exactly know what you'll need, better pick stock Windows 11 Pro version, just disable (not delete) most annoying things, and you won't (mostly) have any "problems" with ongoing updates and newer software and driver updates of whatever you ever decide to use, because wasting time removing things and tweaking registry entries having half of them reset after weekly update is simply a waste of time,

I'm personally growing into virtualization fan, it's so much easier to run Windows in a VM on a Proxmox, allocate resources dynamically, be able to do Snapshots and Backups without OS knowing

ps: checking W11 Enterprise now

 

There are ghostspectre Win11 builds that do not require $$ to download (unless you want to "buy a coffee").

With most everything else there is some sort of remuneration involved.

Win enterprise builds are smaller foot print by design - they are built for server platforms and sometimes do not contain the necessary infrastructure to support media production without much massaging by the user. In the end, enterprise versions are way more trouble than they are worth for production purposes anyway.

Going with a ghostspectre Win11 build one can tailor the amount of crap-ware to load back into it. They install nicely stripped down by default, but that default can be modified to include most of the stuff that was removed. There really isn't much more to say on this that hasn't been said in 1000 other threads.

 

I can't sign off on that. I ordered my wife 2 months ago 2 laptops so that she can compare. Asus Zenobook 14X (i9 13900H, 32GB ram) and a MacBook Pro 14 (M2, 32GB ram). The MacBook was 400€ more expensive, but completely outperformed the Zenbook in terms of power and efficiency. This is partly due to the ARM architecture (which Microsoft did not integrate properly either), and partly due to the software, which simply runs more efficiently in MacOS. Without external power, i.e. on battery power, the Zenbook has a performance dip of about 30-40%, while the MacBook continues to run at 100% performance. And while the Zenbook's fan went nuts under load, the macbook didn't even make a single peep. An incredible feat of engineering on Apple's part. So, is it overpriced? No. However, my wife wanted the Zenbook because she didn't like macOS and the notch. Women... I haven't even considered a Microsoft laptop because they don't offer any reasonable performance.

BTW, the fact that Microsoft puts ads everywhere has nothing to do with hardware prices. The dashboard of my XBOX Series X is 95% ads since the update a week ago. On PC side, Microsoft could sell its overpriced hardware if they had capable hardware and software engineers who could create good software-hardware integration. But they keep falling flat on their face with their Surface devices, because they seem to be completely incapable. Maybe the engineers they poached from apple will bring a positive change, but I doubt it.

Sry. Rant and completely off-topic. But unfortunately true. A year after the launch of Windows 11, millions of users are still waiting for Microsoft to deliver on its biggest Win11 feature promise: visual coherence.

 

Last edited: Aug 23, 2023

The LTSC edition is perfect because it doesn't include Microsoft Store, Cortana, One Drive, and other bloatware.

There are also various applications and scripts that help de-bloat Windows.
Example: https://www.bcuninstaller.com/

 

after checking that Windows 11 Enterprise mentioned above, I found where Microsoft is heading - towards Cloud PCs,

- with what you just wrote, about performance, efficiency etc... it seems it's even more efficient if Microsoft runs PC "farms" with scaleable hardware and software virtualization - at which point you could just buy cheapest tablet for your wife and have even better efficiency and performance...but it's still a bit sci-fi despite Microsoft rents it as a very real thing:

 

Have you taken a closer look at the specifications?
Slow'ish CPU base clock, slow 2666 Mhz RAM, no GPU, hard drive instead of SSD, high RTL ~50-100ms. Seems to me to be suitable for undemanding office work, maybe some simple CAD applications. Nothing serious. And you definitely need a fast, stable internet connection. That leads the idea of a portable laptop somewhat ad absurdum.

Edit: If I went for the model you posted, I would have spent $9,480 for 5 years of use. For that price you can easily get a full spec Mac Studio M2 Ultra + 4K OLED monitor or two 16" MacBook Pro M2 Max, so one full spec for you and one base model for your girl. LOL

 

Last edited: Aug 24, 2023

not sure how you count that, but 158*24=3792 not 9480,
but the point is, you don't need to deal with maintenance, which is where businesses are trying to save money,
in casual enterprise/office use, PCs have rather short lifespan anyway

(not advocating Microsoft, I'd rather pick Macbook over any Windows laptop)

 

The Cloud OS/program has been under furious development by the big techs because is very convenient for them. And a giant... ahem... "upgrade" of our assholes size.
Everything runs on the Cloud, our PCs become "terminals".
That's a whole another topic but dangerously approaching in the mid/long-term

 

Uhhmm. No. I will not succumb to corporate big-brother-esque regulation just to run photoshop, or protools, etc. If you have ever worked in a corporate environment with nazi-esque "network security eyes" bearing down on you 24/7/365 you would know what I am talking about. This "cloud" model has been ramping up for the cause for some years now culminating in the MS cloud 365 idiocy, and the "adobe cloud computing" garbage, and with Avid's subscription crap. I prefer to use and regulate my own machines in my own domain, under my own rules and control thanks very much... This "cloud" paradigm won't "approach" if ppl put their foot down and call bullshit on it all. Problem is there are too many sheep in the user community and not enough wolves currently.

p.s. To the OP; seeing this a rant? Fine. Remember you brought the subject up like there weren't already 500 threads outlining the same fucking thing already.

 

Last edited: Aug 23, 2023

Oops... 5 years. Not 2. Apparently I had a gigantic brain fart.

Well, those companies still have to manage and take care of IT security. It is much more cost-effective to build a local, on-premises cloud server and scale employees to compute cores. The employees could then still access the company cloud from home via their browser.

What Microsoft is doing here is overpriced nonsense. Honestly, I have nothing against MS, I am a long-term Windows user. It's just that sometimes I think MS would do well to listen more to its users and take a leaf out of Apple's book here and there in the right places. A little more willingness to take risks and uncompromising on performance and coherence wouldn't hurt. But instead of selling high-performance hardware and a rock-solid, fully modernised operating system, they sell way overpriced laptops with 4-core CPUs from 2019 as "Pro" for creatives, fucking up their devices and blaming intel, drag around 20-year-old dependencies and outdated stuff with huge security gaps in their OS (I mean, come on, powershell 2.0?), try to sell you a superfluous and overpriced cloud system, trying to push a subscription model onto office software and bother the customer with advertising at every conceivable point. It's kinda cringe

 

Last edited: Aug 24, 2023