Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
00:46 Sponsor: TuxCare Radar
02:23 Windows 11 is failing right now
05:20 What’s the job of an OS?
06:51 Updates break systems. Often.
10:53 You have to adapt to it
15:14 It’s highly intrusive
17:44 Debloating tools don’t make it good
20:19 Windows fails at being an OS
21:33 Alternatives are better, but not perfect
27:23 Windows is a sales platform, not an OS
Honestly I don’t know which projects are up to date, so I’m afraid to recommend what I vaguely remember.
Search GitHub/Gitlab for “windows debloat” or similar concepts, and sort the results by date updated (e.g. the most recent commit). This is precisely what I’d do with a fresh Windows install, anyway.
On top of that, I go through running services one by one and disable the ones I don’t need.
I disable Defender active protection (except for the firewall/anti tamper) as well, as it absolutely tanks the performance of many applications. As one example I measured, it multiplies the startup time for modded Rimworld, and dramatically slows game ticks. It seems to slow Cyberpunk 2077 as well, but not as reproducibly.
Most “debloaters” won’t do this, as it’s generally not a good idea. But I treat my Windows partition as disposable: nothing sensitive stored, no sensitive data accessible on drives nor networks, data on a separate partition. If it was infected, I could wipe it and reinstall without a care.