This will help get rid of some of the bloat. I run this on every w11 install I do.
https://github.com/ChrisTitusTech/winutil
God, I hate reinstalling Windows. Whenever I see "Try reinstalling Windows" as a serious solution to some tech problem on the Windows forums I feel so irritated because to get everything back to how it was (*hopefully *minus the issue) is basically a half day to full day undertaking because of all the bloat and annoying settings I have to change.
Linux never annoyed me as much as long as I put my home directory on a separate partition, though to be fair, I didn't use it as much and was never quite as balls deep in custom settings and apps as with Windows due to Windows being a requirement for work.
The last version of Windows I used (and loved) was Windows 2000. It was rock solid and came with nothing but the basics. The install ISO was only 300 MB. 500 MB after service packs were merged. Almost pefect.
I think we're starting to see the beginning of the end of the Windows hegemony, for one reason: the success of the Steam Deck has made gaming on Linux mainstream. The two things that have always kept power users tied to Windows have been games and office, but GAMES were the big one. Suddenly, it starts to look like it might be possible to do without Windows for gaming, if not now, then soon.
I'm still on Win10 but I just can't see myself moving to win11, it's ugly and I hate if. If I need to get a new OS in the foreseeable future it's gonna be Linux.
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