What does HackerNews think of Windows10Debloater?

https://github.com/Sycnex/Windows10Debloater

WARNING: Use at your own risk, no guarantees. Personally never broke anything for me.

These are paid and fully licensed versions of Windows 10, and yes, I am now aware of the registry hacks to try to delay this. Only run these two laptops, because are forced to use some apps that are only available for Win10. Otherwise would dumpster fire the whole Microsoft crap.

What shocked me was the whole intrusiveness of window. A complete grab of the screen that makes you believe this is some kind of forced emergency upgrade. Under Windows Updates, you can choose the "Delay for Now". It was not there before, and must have been installed in one of false Microsoft Security Updates. The whole Microsoft thing stinks of lack of respect for the user, and misleading dishonest patterns and I had enough of it...Win 11 is not yet stable, and not all apps are compatible and had or my assistant upgraded it, could have causes serious compatibility issues.

Somebody else messes with your systems with no warning, before an important meeting, either at my office or 2000 km away from Redmond, I am going to bitch about it...

Basically what I did was I started with the default and then unchecked (or checked? I don't remember what the UI called for now) anything related to Xbox and the Store and I didnt have any issues.

I also did a comparison before and after and it was actually a pretty decent improvement. About a 10fps improvement over SteamOS and a Normal Windows 10.

For me the biggest incentive was being able to play xbox game pass games and not needing to worry about any compatibility issues with Proton which is why I went down that route.

But yeah your second part is very true. I feel, the impact is minimal if you are on a traditional PC. But on something with such limited resources like a Steam Deck, the difference can be going from 40 fps to mid 50's and a few more minutes of battery life.

But it isn't something I would recommend most people do. More just kinda pointing out that with the effort I think Microsoft could make a lean Windows really just by taking a look at what is actually necessary to be run for specific tasks.

As far as scripts for it, this thread has some sage advice:

https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/n3v0s5/disable_win...

The tools to disable telemetry and bloat:

https://github.com/irmatade/sharpapp https://www.oo-software.com/fr/shutup10 https://github.com/Sycnex/Windows10Debloater

MSFT doc on what all telemetry is gathered, and what is considered "required" telemetry (although they give you enough info to block it at the router):

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/privacy/configure-w...

I do like Win10 as an OS. On the whole I'd say the Satya era of MSFT is a mixed bag, but better on the whole than it was before.