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It's a corporate enterprise business-deal thing and human lazyness and errorful thinking while decision-making all the stack down. So in the end it has less to do with the end-user in mind.

Just install linux and forget about your ugly past - if you can!

I'd rather cut 2 fingers of each hand than use Windows as my base system privately. But i am forced to run a lot of my day on windows machines because of work and the restrictions.

So i really don't know what you are waiting for.

I don't know about that. It seems like MSFT realizes they have a high value captive audience in gamers and are squeezing them as much as possible. And because youngsters haven't experienced anything except dark patterns, they accept it to be normal. We need regulation to break the dark pattern bondage as competition doesn't exist.

I agree on the cut 2 fingers thing. I'd rather not use a computer or try to make my own OS than use Windows in a professional environment to try and accomplish work. Teams and Outlook are bad enough.

The problem with that is that most of the time people are mocking about a system without properly knowing it. It doesn't matter, which system, but, they're to lazy to learn it properly. Debloat Windows is easy. You have to know how, you have to really have interest in finding the solutions for.. once you know it, you'll use it on each occasion.

Also, the animations and perceived speed of the UI can be adjusted, as all parts of the UI like border widths, icon sizes and spacings.. you need to know how :)

Also the start-up process and the services and and and.. each part of the os can be tweaked. You need to invest time to learn it - the same as it would be the case with Linux.

So I really can't understand the hustle.

Please consider to invest the same amount of time to learn the os made by msft as you've probably invested into learning Linux. (Years?)

There's plenty of tools for job like that. Winaero tweaker, various debloaters, shutup, and scripts for installation or install-media modifiers.. also the tweaking of features with switching on off some experimental settings.. there is a whole new world to discover. Even digging the registery and writing reg files.. so much can be done, but .. better praise Linux, isn't it :)

There's too much to write about. My intention is just to open the closed eyes and tell that there's more than one would or could ever think, not to write a rant or something. Invest the time and work and you'll get a system that is "yours".

https://schneegans.de/windows/unattend-generator/

This is to start with. There's some unattend and autounattend generator on GitHub I do not remember, but which is even more sofisticado.

Deskmodder.com

And then, digging the Internet for the particular questions should help any win-admin

Have fun and take your time to know the systems you use. Peace!

Switch to Linux and play games that run on Linux.

Obviously this isn't always an option. Sometimes the Epic Games store is an alternative, but somehow that seems worse to me.

I use Windows in work, Linux/Windows for home. But on the Windows at work when I have spare time I develop my experiments-side project.

What I like on Windows is the availability of latest and greatest of open source software. Of course this has nothing to do with M$$$ but only with the hard work of individuals.

With the Windows recall not resolving I will surely replace the Windows system for FreeBSD. But If ReactOS becomes available and even if it is usable (not necesaarily on par with Windows, Networking and USB) I would use it because of the vast amount of software and knowledge.

I'm not sure what you mean open source and MSFT. I assumed you develop for Windows, why else would you use such an OS?

My company has obliged me to use windows so that they put "spying antivirus".

At home I use Linux but I have a windows machine where I get the latest and greatest software from FOSS and fix Windows only open source windows or make sure things compile on windows too.

I'll agree on the Microsoft account, but the other issues are mostly nothingburgers.

> Inability to remove Internet Explorer

Just don't click on it, problem solved. IE is just a thin veneer in any case. The engine behind IE is an OS component that third-party programs can rely on, removing that could break those.

> Edge is reinstalled every Windows update

Annoying but again just don't click on it, problem solved. At least for Edge they've split out the engine into WebView2 which programs can distribute themselves. So instead of a single OS component you now can have several programs all bringing their own WebView2 version, progress! Sure some might opt for the evergreen version but devs have an option of bundling a private version.

> Why the heck am I prompted each time I open an app to let it do things

Better ask the program. Or do you mean UAC? In that case either turn it down, or identify which program isn't playing by the rules and install that in a separate directory.

You mention games and a lot of games, especially older, tend to update files in their install directory. This is a problem if you have multiple users using the same program. It's also a security concern if a regular user can modify the installation.

Easiest way to avoid the UAC prompts in those cases is just to install games in a directory that's not under "Program Files" or similar. For example I configure Steam to install all games in C:\Games.

> My personal Desktop, Documents, etc were all moved to be subdirectories of "OneDrive"

Pretty sure you confirmed you wanted it to do that. If you had instead declined when asked, it wouldn't have done that. Now granted, I think the dialog doesn't explain the ramifications well enough. But on all my various Windows devices I've just declined and the personal folders have stayed put.

> Just right click the Window in the taskbar, select "Move", then press "Shift + UP", FIXED!

Similar on Windows, usually Windows + arrow keys can bring the window back in a sensible position, alternatively right click on the window thumbnail when hovering on the taskbar, and click move. Then use arrow keys.

I've been a Windows user since 3.11 days, and there are several things I don't particularly like in recent Windows releases. The above are mere quibbles in comparison IMHO.

Reduction of configurability, removal of useful features without replacements, enforcing TPM rendering huge swathes of perfectly fine computers without support as they sunset the version without that requirement... just to mention a few that came to mind now.

I bought the machine and OS. If I remove something, it should be gone. It's obviously bad UX and you're arguing against the consumer here.

I don't even have a Microsoft account. It's possible I dismissed a dialog that nagged me and this caused my directory structure to change.

Thanks for the tip on UAC prompt, I'll try rearranging things to fix it.

When compared to OSX, Windows seems so anti-user. I mean this with regard to trying to sell the user everything and not respecting the user's actions.

> I bought the machine and OS. If I remove something, it should be gone.

I worked support during the Windows 95-98 days, we had multiple cases of people "just cleaning up" and had managed to delete a significant amount of their Windows folder, to the point Windows no longer booted.

Internet Explorer was considered an OS component, hence why it really shouldn't be removed. I'll grant you Edge though.

> Windows seems so anti-user

Windows is a product with a long history. I will agree that in recent times it has changed to the worse, and with a less clear idea of who or what it's for.

With Windows Home making you jump through hoops to install non-Windows Store applications, it seems home computers will turn into fully walled gardens like Xbox for gaming and tablets for consumption and light creation.

That future is certainly anti-power user, though most users just want stuff to work, they don't care about removing IE or modifying background images etc.

Windows as it used to be might survive in the corporate environment, where people still need to run 30+ year old software.

You think people don't want to change their desktop background? Windows serves MSFT and kinda like does something that resembles an OS.

Sure I do. That does not involve anything like what you said though. It involves a couple of simple clicks and you got your background of choice: Start -> Themes -> Background -> Browse -> Success.

Given your description I assumed you meant modifying the existing background images, nothing else made sense.

I described the process required to use the images Windows provides without going to the MSFT store to give them money. Every part of the OS is an attempt to grab cash. Including hiding images from the user by obfuscating the file name and removing file extensions. And somehow this is not undesirable and I'm wrong.

Windows feels like it’s always in the way. Honestly, apps like Roots help me stay focused when dealing w/ all that mess

keeps distractions low so I can get things done without losing hours tweaking settings or dealing w/ pop-ups.

Windows has always been annoying, but now it seems like nearly every UX element is a trap or broken (both?).

I'm not familiar with Roots. Google suggests it's an iOS app for focus. You use it on Windows?

>Who is Windows For?

I like using Windows as a personal air gap system because of how nice it is to write custom win32 applications. I usually gut the system with Rufus, winget to remove as many apps, powershell to maximize a few other things, and the registry for whatever else needs to be changed but the system left I think is really nice.

Is there a summary somewhere for non Windows acolytes on how to make the system usable?

Here's a minimal -> maximal (choose your own adventure) windows 10 and|or 11 debloat | tweak | install | BYO install utility.

https://github.com/ChrisTitusTech/winutil

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UQZ5oQg8XA

The defaults are not at all extreme with the knife, it takes away all the advertorial ad-ons and shows how to disable more (including Edge and defaulting to Edge from system links).

Also includes the ability to mod your own ISO to make a lean clean fast install | boot disk for later on or friends.

It's "open" if you read powershell scripts, it's literally just a pipe from a readable GIT reposity to a powershell GUI that toggles scripts that can be read by clicking on [?]'s.

If nothing else you can select the default recommended updates setting which is no new features just security updates.

Thanks. I will read up!

Titus is brilliant.

Also a good idea can be to familiarize yourself with all of the built-in apps and ones you install yourself, and explore their settings to make sure any data generated or downloaded is saved to a sensible folder hierarchy which you create on a drive other than C:. Like an external drive. A real storage drive, not OneDrive, I would uninstall that. Since C: is the volume that contains Windows itself it's good to be able to replace Windows whenever you want without fear that some of your valuable data is buried in some default folder deeply nested on your C: volume which can slow you down to a crawl picking through it.

If you really want to have all your files at your disposal without having to rely on internet connections or cloud storage.

Even if you've never professionally used a quaint old 4-drawer filing cabinet, and are even further from mastering the Windows file manager (currently named "File Explorer"), you can surely do better than the way it ends up if you leave the Microsoft defaults to work their mayhem.

You may find it ideal to end up with a separate folder hierarchy for each program you install, or each project you start, etc.

For one thing you get to do it the way you want and can more seriously consider gradual improvements from there when it makes the most sense for you. As long as it works nobody can tell you that it's wrong. And the whole time you know your valuable data is in folders & files at least one step removed from being jumbled up with all the Windows files & folders on the C: volume. Any data that builds up routinely should be intentionally directed by you to somewhere else so you can make sure that the space taken up on the C: drive is not excessive in case you want to back that up as a "system" for system recovery later. Temporary internet files can remain at default on C: just fine since they have a functional procedure for cleanup. When your valuable data is intentionally on a separate drive to begin with it's already "backed up" to an extent in case something unfortunate was to happen to your C: volume anyway. And you can unplug an external drive to reduce risk when you aren't really using it at the time.

Oh yeah, stay away from bitlocker since it can screw up your external drives. Unless you really are in the FBI or something ;)

After using the util, it's okay. It doesn't really remove any of the dark patterns or attempts to sell. I guess that's just how Windows is now. Hopefully one day OSX or Linux will have gaming (not Epic gaming).

Curiously it worked for me (on a Windows 10 install) - no ads, no Edge, no telemetry (I use sysInternals ProcessExplorer and other tools as a cross check).

I also use the seperate O&O tweaks (App Buster and ShutUP) that I saw were included as part of the winUtil's many options (I'm guessing titus just copied the tweaks across).

Maybe you misread the GUI (perhaps ticked options but didn't apply?).

Hard to debug from a distance.

Regardless - there's also the Revision community that are dedicated to gutting windows for peak gaming - you can read their stuff and talk to their members on forums, etc:

https://revi.cc/about https://revi.cc/docs/playbook/general

As I recall this is also the path taken by a number of Qubes users to make their Windows "Qubes" (a clean stripped down windows VM to spin up fresh for secure tasks isolated from others).

This tool seems like it's for a person who is forced to use Windows at work. If you must use MSFT and you can't find a new job, use this tool until you do.

Who Is Windows For?