Bloatware-free Windows 10 at Major Geeks

There's no reason for League of Legends to not have a proper Linux port, or World of Warcraft, or OverWatch, and etc.

Of course there's a reason, it's called market share. The monthly Steam hardware survey for April just came out, Windows 10 lost a tiny bit, Windows 7 was up a close to .9% a point. Linux as been well under a 1% for months now. Windows overall grew to well over 96% of all Steam users. If that number is even close to being accurate and I know Linux folks will debate that it's not, but even is it's reasonably close, there's just not a lot of folks PC gaming on much besides Windows and there's just nothing compelling enough about gaming on Linux to make the move. If Linux had a lot more games, better performance (not blaming Linux, that situation is market share related) or say VR gaming was happening on Linux. I would have setup Linux just to do that.

So whatever the issues are with Windows or Windows 10 specifically, when it comes to gaming the alternatives have issues with support that just don't make it worth while for most for gaming. You do see a lot of people around places like this that say they use Windows only for gaming.
 
I get that the final spreadsheet in this post is a "hardware testing" setup, but how many folks reading here might think that would be a great setup for their daily driver gaming rig? If there are kids out there reading this news post and disabling every windows protection to try and get 3 more FPS out of their system, that's some bad juju. That list should definitely have a disclaimer to not be used as a daily system config. Those settings do half the work for the malware and open you up for a potential world of hurt.

Getting rid of Windows "bloatware" has long been a thing. People see this stuff that they think is clogging up their system but the truth is it's not really.
 
Getting rid of Windows "bloatware" has long been a thing. People see this stuff that they think is clogging up their system but the truth is it's not really.

It used to make a difference. You used to be able to squeeze a few more FPS out of it. Now, with 16+ GB RAM, CPU's >4GHz with multiple cores, efficient Windows file and service handling, it's just not a thing anymore. Windows does an excellent job of managing memory and system resources.

I say decrapify - get rid of the shit you won't use, but don't get rid of core system requirements - Antivirus, antimalware, UAC, services, etc.. If you don't need Adobe starting every time, take it out of Startup.
 
I have installed Windows 10 on 12 work computers and 3 home computers and I really haven't had any major issues.

Here are all my major issues with windows 10)
- My computer will not boot with a PS3 controller plugged in.

I have no issues with my computer booting with a PS3 controller plugged in. What drivers are you using?
 
I turn this off the instant I install a fresh instance. My thought process is if that machine is so broke it needs a previous instance to operate it should be reimaged from when you built it in the first place. That previous restore could be equally as infected, compromised or flawed and just wasn't found yet. If I build a machine from scratch and the computer leaves my control I give them a DVD with their "ghost" image on it. Also a stern warning not to only save their files on the hard drive but also external or other backup.
I've had bad updates to software and drivers be fixed by System Restore, thus saving me the time of a full restore from back or rebuild. I suppose if you place a zero value on your time, then sure, System Restore is a pile of crap.
 
Same here...

We went through similar rage 2000->XP "Bubblegum UI"... Had lists of 20 services to disable, settings to turn back to good old Win2000, regedits etc.

Some of the tweaks were useful back then since software used a larger % of resources available, but a lot of it was similar UI and app complaints.

...

The only customization on Win10 I do is hide/remove cortana from the taskbar, show file extensions and hidden files and set control panel back to old/small icons (relic of the old days never learned what items were in what section lol).
Heh, to this day, I still make the Windows 7 taskbar look like Windows 2000. It has the best use of space of any of the taskbars I've seen.
 
For me, it's not about slowing down my system - it's just that I don't want that crap on my system.

Of course. The paid-per-post MS advocate's just being obtuse as usual, trying to downplay the bloat as "no big deal cuz you have a powerful PC". Sorry sparky, that's not why the shovelware in 10 is getting so much pushback.

If I was running dual 24-core Xeons with 512GB RAM and the fastest M.2 drives I still wouldn't want Cortana, Edge, Tiles, the Metro Store and all that other mobile oriented garbage anywhere near my PC.
 
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All he doing in the video is removing all the Provisioned apps which is quite easy after you install Windows 10 any version. I use a tool called Windows App Boss it allow you to remove apps per user or the system provision apps with ease. You can find it @ https://windowsappboss.codeplex.com/

Remove all junk the way you want. You can even remove the store period and never have it install crap again.
 
All he doing in the video is removing all the Provisioned apps which is quite easy after you install Windows 10 any version. I use a tool called Windows App Boss it allow you to remove apps per user or the system provision apps with ease. You can find it @ https://windowsappboss.codeplex.com/

Remove all junk the way you want. You can even remove the store period and never have it install crap again.
The point is its building a bloat-free ISO so you don't have to manually go through the removal steps every time you reinstall. Pulling the weeds out by the roots.
 
The point is its building a bloat-free ISO so you don't have to manually go through the removal steps every time you reinstall. Pulling the weeds out by the roots.

Of course. The paid-per-post MS advocate's just being obtuse as usual, trying to downplay the bloat as "no big deal cuz you have a powerful PC". Sorry sparky, that's not why the shovelware in 10 is getting so much pushback.

If I was running dual 24-core Xeons with 512GB RAM and the fastest M.2 drives I still wouldn't want Cortana, Edge, Tiles, the Metro Store and all that other mobile oriented garbage anywhere near my PC.

Both of these things very much for me.

I've got my gaming rig , work rig for home , high end work laptop , telco closet I don't care about laptop , my son's gaming rig and daughters gaming laptops. I takes me x5-10 times as long to get W10 actually ready to use then install it as all have M2 or SSD's.

I shouldn't have to go to settings and uninstall 20 or so "apps" on every one , I don't need fucking 3d builder nor the myriad of other shit.

Then , I shouldn't have to pull up powershell to nuke Cortana and about 20 more things in Powershell that you can't just right click an uninstall for some genius reason. No , I don't need fucking XBOX live nor the MS Store on ANY of my machines.

Finally , I shouldn't have to EDIT FUCKING GROUP POLICY to keep MS from forcing some shitty drivers onto my machines either. There's ZERO , zero , reason for this , as no admin anywhere I know of wants MS in charge of the drivers for the machines.

If I can find/make and ISO that strips all that bullshit out from the get go , it's well worth it to me.
 
Getting rid of Windows "bloatware" has long been a thing. People see this stuff that they think is clogging up their system but the truth is it's not really.

My point is that the MAJORITY of the items listed in [H]'s spreadsheet are malware and exploit prevention measures. Defender, DEP, and UAC are hardly bloatware, they are actually doing a good job eliminating a fair portion of malware and making exploit devs expend a lot more time. Otherwise any kid with Kali linux could fire an exploit at your box and own it.
 
Well at least you tried it.

If you want any advice on how to have a better experience, just let me know, and I'll help you out. :)

Yes. And after 5-6 months of it on my laptop I switched back to Windows 10. If I still had a lot of interest in tinkering with things and occasionally fighting to make something work right I would probably have left it on there. However, I don't. I just want something that works well. I would have gone back to 7 on the laptop except 7 runs like shit on it so 10 it is, it runs about on par with Linux Mint.
 
A lot more effort goes into Ubuntu for gaming btw, so Arch is not exactly the best gaming experience unless you're like a super-duper-greybeard. I game on Ubuntu myself. I'm not scared of Arch, but to me I see no advantage to it for gaming.

As for FPS comparison, it's not a reasonable expectation to have, that games running with WINE are to have the same or similar FPS to Windows. There are games, like DOOM (2016) that are the exception, but most will have lower FPS when you play them through WINE, as opposed to if they were native. But that doesn't necessarily mean the FPS you get is bad. I get 70-90FPS or more in League of Legends on my i7-980x/960 GTX in Linux on the regular. Is that not sufficient for you?

I run a lot of games through WINE (PlayOnLinux) and native ones too. I generally don't consider games playable if I get really shitty FPS though, but the majority of games I want to play, I can in Linux. Be it WINE or native. More and more games are coming native to Linux, and it's just a matter of time for the rest.

Consider this, Overwatch is the only Blizzard game you CANNOT get playable on Linux. All other titles play very well in Linux through WINE. Right now I have, playable with good/great FPS, Starcraft 2, Heroes of the Storm, Hearthstone, Diablo 3, Warcraft 3 ROC/TFT, 3 different versions of WoW incl Legion, and probably a few others I'm forgetting.

Anyways, sorry for the rant, just thought I'd share :)


Yes, I'm currently dual booting W10 and Arch. Linux is still crap for gaming. Most new games won't run at all in Wine and most older games don't run as well as they do in W10 (League of Legends, the most played game in existence, runs "ok" but at about 1/3 the fps that it does in Windows while still feeling stuttery at 100+ fps whereas on Windows it's silky smooth at a frame rate limited 144fps).

I thought I'd spend most of my time in Arch but I find that since all I'm doing is gaming and internetting that I just boot straight into Windows so I have access to what I want.
 
BTW, any particular reason you went with Mint over say, Ubuntu, or another distro? I tried Mint and it didn't seem worth the hype I heard.

Yep, but I dual boot. Linux for all my general purpose computing/programming needs and Windows for the Steam games that haven't gotten to Linux yet. I've had way fewer issues with Mint Linux than I've had with Windows 10.
 
More and more games are coming native to Linux, and it's just a matter of time for the rest.

Windows is currently getting six times the number of games as Linux on Steam, five times if you don't count VR titles. So in absolute terms the gap is widening, not shrinking.
 
I don't think you understand how many games new and "old" have been coming to Linux in the last year. The gap is the closest it's ever been, and it's changed by a massive amount the last two years.

Not only that, I dare you to go to a STEAM discussion section for any game, and find one that does NOT have a "Linux?" like thread. The amount of people wanting gaming on Linux is not only massive, it's growing, and it wont stop.

Windows is currently getting six times the number of games as Linux on Steam, five times if you don't count VR titles. So in absolute terms the gap is widening, not shrinking.
 
Exactly. Every 6 months there's going to be another 'major update' that reinstalls the OS in place. Your software will break, your privacy settings will get reset without your permission, and Candy Crush will be back.

The best option is simply to avoid using this dumpster fire of an OS altogether. I moved the whole house from 7 to Linux Mint back in October, including my gaming rig. If you really can't switch to Linux at least use 7 or 8.
****ing Candy Crush you just can't get rid of it worst malware ever!

Hmm... I'm a bit ambivalent about this. I mean, do I really need card games, a word processor, a calculator, media player, drawing program, etc., with the OS? Yet these have been included in every version of Windows since 3.1, and is included in almost every major distribution of other OS's. So what if Microsoft chooses to include more programs that I don't need, I don't see the need for all the hate, unless you are just looking for a reason to hate.
I use all of those except media player fairly routinely. The other 3 don't really take up any space anyway like what 5MB combined maybe and don't need to be installed. I did change the calculator though in windows 10 back to the older style one that's not a store app.
 
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Windows is currently getting six times the number of games as Linux on Steam, five times if you don't count VR titles. So in absolute terms the gap is widening, not shrinking.

Windows Updates seem to be breaking older games just as fast. Have fun fixing your game library every six months.

'Windows-compatible' doesn't mean what it used to, the Windows user base is massively fragmented with the majority using an 8 year old OS and Windows 10 limping along at 25% market share.

You keep focusing on the supposed total number of Windows games because you don't want to admit that Linux has become a viable gaming platform. All my favorite games are on Linux. I have more games than free time to play.
 
Windows Updates seem to be breaking older games just as fast. Have fun fixing your game library every six months.

'Windows-compatible' doesn't mean what it used to, the Windows user base is massively fragmented with the majority using an 8 year old OS and Windows 10 limping along at 25% market share.

You keep focusing on the supposed total number of Windows games because you don't want to admit that Linux has become a viable gaming platform. All my favorite games are on Linux. I have more games than free time to play.

Speaking as a long time linux supporter calling linux a viable platform is a fucking joke and a half.

It gets less than 1/4 of games released and the performance is a hot mess. Performance is never on par with windows and there are far too many random slow downs etc.

Do a few side by side performance tests and its clear how far behind linux still is even with valve shoveling money into it.
 
Speaking as a long time linux supporter calling linux a viable platform is a fucking joke and a half.

It gets less than 1/4 of games released and the performance is a hot mess. Performance is never on par with windows and there are far too many random slow downs etc.

Do a few side by side performance tests and its clear how far behind linux still is even with valve shoveling money into it.

If your having massive performance issues perhaps your running the wrong distro. I am half joking, I game under linux on an Arch based distro and performance for the majority of games is pretty close to equal. Sure of course windows still gets the majority of big game house support today... but I'm voting with my wallet for the most part these days.

As for Valve they aren't pouring money into Linux. I wish that was true... they are keeping the lights on is what they are doing. Biding their time. I think they are aware that at some point in the next few years MS is going to be in serious trouble when Google makes a play for the main stream PC market. When they do they want to be positioned to be the easy peasy slide in game store of choice for Chrome Pro.
 
At this point nobody should blame Linux for poor gaming performance or lack of compatibility. Blame the studios for not spending a little money to make a Linux port.
It's not about blame, it's about the reality of what will run your games. I would argue Microsoft is to blame for making Windows 10 such a fucking mess it makes people want to flee it. That doesn't change the fact that Linux is the latecomer when it comes to gaming and doesn't have the sales, compatibility, or marketshare to justify developers creating releases for it, unless it's a braindead procedure. For most AAA games, it's unlikely to be that simple. I don't blame the developers for targeting 96% of the market for sales, that's just reality. I don't blame Linux for not having better compatibility for software designed for a foreign OS, but at the same time, that's the responsibility it needs to take to bring over gamers.

DukenukemX said:
Also you could run Windows within Linux and still get nearly the same performance in games while keeping Windows isolated. Given that you have 2 graphic cards in your system, you can play Windows games at full speed within Linux.
I'll try and look at this later, but this is the first thing I've heard resembling a solution in the Windows / Linux gaming debate. Could you summarize the 20 minute video a little for us?

Windows Updates seem to be breaking older games just as fast. Have fun fixing your game library every six months.
I have no doubt this could be true, but can you give some specifics? Stuff like this is one of the biggest reasons I haven't moved off of 7. I would like to know what some of the particular problem cases are.
 
I don't think you understand how many games new and "old" have been coming to Linux in the last year. The gap is the closest it's ever been, and it's changed by a massive amount the last two years.

Not only that, I dare you to go to a STEAM discussion section for any game, and find one that does NOT have a "Linux?" like thread. The amount of people wanting gaming on Linux is not only massive, it's growing, and it wont stop.

The numbers of games currently being added to Steam just don't support what you're saying:

Non-VR Linux games added to Steam to date since 01/01/2017 - 347
VR Linux games added to Steam to date since 01/01/2017 - 2
macOS games added to Steam to date since 01/01/2017 - 510
Windows VR games added to Steam to date since 01/01/2017 - 352
Non-VR Windows games added to Steam to date since 01/01/2017 - 1700
Linux Total - 349
macOS Total 510
Windows Toal - 2052

Linux game counts aren't even keeping pace with macOS currently and no where close to Windows. And SteamVR for Linux is basically a no show over a year after Windows support. Valve hasn't even released its free VR demo "The Lab" for Linux yet. I get that Linux folks will say "Well there used to be no games on Steam" and that's true. But Windows gaming on Steam is simply on it's own level compared to macOS and Linux and that's why over 96% of Steam users are using Windows.
 
Windows Updates seem to be breaking older games just as fast. Have fun fixing your game library every six months.

'Windows-compatible' doesn't mean what it used to, the Windows user base is massively fragmented with the majority using an 8 year old OS and Windows 10 limping along at 25% market share.

You keep focusing on the supposed total number of Windows games because you don't want to admit that Linux has become a viable gaming platform. All my favorite games are on Linux. I have more games than free time to play.

Windows 10 limping along at 25% market share and desktop Linux going gang busters at 2%, sure. I've had this sig rig running for 10 months now, started with 1511 then went to 1607 and now 1703. I've got about 200 games installed. I don't play a lot of older games because I've got a lot in newer games and VR but I've got a few, the original Max Payne works fine with the same patch needed to make it work under 7. But now issues with any Steam games, the original Crysis and others. Whatever issues you want to make of Windows, there's just no way to run all of this stuff on Linux.

And as for Linux being a viable gaming platform, well yeah there are games. But I don't see how viable it is compared to Windows when so little content is coming out for Linux compared to Windows.
 
A lot more effort goes into Ubuntu for gaming btw, so Arch is not exactly the best gaming experience unless you're like a super-duper-greybeard. I game on Ubuntu myself. I'm not scared of Arch, but to me I see no advantage to it for gaming.

As for FPS comparison, it's not a reasonable expectation to have, that games running with WINE are to have the same or similar FPS to Windows. There are games, like DOOM (2016) that are the exception, but most will have lower FPS when you play them through WINE, as opposed to if they were native. But that doesn't necessarily mean the FPS you get is bad. I get 70-90FPS or more in League of Legends on my i7-980x/960 GTX in Linux on the regular. Is that not sufficient for you?

I run a lot of games through WINE (PlayOnLinux) and native ones too. I generally don't consider games playable if I get really shitty FPS though, but the majority of games I want to play, I can in Linux. Be it WINE or native. More and more games are coming native to Linux, and it's just a matter of time for the rest.

Consider this, Overwatch is the only Blizzard game you CANNOT get playable on Linux. All other titles play very well in Linux through WINE. Right now I have, playable with good/great FPS, Starcraft 2, Heroes of the Storm, Hearthstone, Diablo 3, Warcraft 3 ROC/TFT, 3 different versions of WoW incl Legion, and probably a few others I'm forgetting.

Anyways, sorry for the rant, just thought I'd share :)

Arch isn't any different from Ubuntu in regards to gaming unless you're worried about compiling Wine-Gallium from AUR.

As for fps I don't expect WINE to give the exact same performance as native applications. But, I get 90-120ish fps in LoL in Linux and it feels less smooth than 60 fps in Windows; and when I'm limiting max framerate in Windows to 144fps and it never dips from there it's just not comparable. WoW is FAR slower and less stable in WINE than in Windows and that game's engine is archaic. There's no reason to even try newer graphically demanding games like Battlefield 1, The Division, Rise of the Tomb Raider, etc. Sure there's no reason that Linux can't have native games that run as well as Windows but it is still the same issue it's always had; Linux still doesn't have the install base to make it worthwhile for developers. I've been playing with Linux for over 20 years (Does anyone remember buying Linux books at the bookstore to get the Slackware install disks?) while Linux has gotten much better for normal desktop use and while it's a ton better than it was for gaming it's still pretty damn awful in comparison to Windows.
 
Neither Linux nor Mac will ever make a truly viable competitive alternative to Windows without better API, developer support, and hardware support is the bottom line those three things are what keep windows PC gaming a mostly impenetrable fortress with a moat around it full of alligators and archers all along it's 20 foot walls...it would take something major like Nvidia merging with Apple and pushing open source API's hard like Vulkcan to dare viably threaten PC gaming.

Linux and Mac are about as menacing at overtaking PC gaming as ARM is taking over x86 for gaming. Sure they exist and in they can work well enough in some cases, but at the more cutting edge end of the spectrum they simple aren't comparable enough and will require much more to shake things up.
 
When windows asks me if I want to buy the wallpaper on the login page....forgetting everything online is free
 
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