
Windows 10 Without the Cruft: Windows 10 LTSB (Long Term Servicing Branch) - walterbell
https://www.howtogeek.com/273824/windows-10-without-the-cruft-windows-10-ltsb-explained/
======
alkonaut
I'm on ltsb for my business laptop and it stinks. Id rather have random issues
with a few upgrades than be stuck without new features and get almost no bug
fixes. New features I get for my home machine are missing on my job laptop.
New dpi handling improvements coming Nope, not in ltsb.

It appears to get security fixes only - few bug fixes. For example, the LTSB
start menu is completely broken - there is no search on it and it takes 3-4
seconds to show. Presumably related to the lack of Cortana, but who knows. In
any case, it's been a widely reported bug in ltsb for a long time and it's a
pretty fundamental feature in windows.

I could see the point in being on the LTSB branch of _windows 7_ because that
OS is done. But windows 10 isn't nearly finished yet and very rough around the
edges. Being on LTSB of such an old Win10 release is like being on the release
day version of a AAA game while everyone else runs the fixed version that came
out 3 months later.

~~~
midnitewarrior
LTSB is meant for kiosks, embedded systems, and other business applications
where a non-changing OS is important.

If you put this on a laptop for daily use, you're going to have a bad time.

~~~
technion
But that's precisely the problem. This article even calls it "Windows 10
without the cruft", and there's this misinformed view everywhere that you can
"strip down" and accordingly "make faster" Windows by using the LTSB. And
before you know it, everyone wants to.

There are forum threads with people buying home desktops and being upset that
they didn't get LTSB because "Cortana uses RAM I want for gaming".

LTSB is a victim of poor marketing. It should be called "kiosk edition" or
something to make some of these things really clear to people.

~~~
hedora
Ok, I want a machine to do _nothing_ but run office. I have given up on the
portion of my Steam library that doesn't run on Linux, but running Steam would
be a bonus.

I have no interest in the app store, or any of Microsoft's cloud services, and
sending my data to Microsoft (or leaving open a remote diagnostics backdoor)
is a complete deal breaker for me. Since my Win 8 box downloaded backports of
the Win 10 spyware without my authorization, I have physically unplugged it.

Is there some reason LTSB will not meet my requirements? I can afford
$7/month.

It seems like the best choice at the moment, but I'd rather not waste time if
it can't run office (or has hardware issues, etc).

~~~
bubblethink
Just run Windows in a VM and cut off internet access. Use the windows offline
updater periodically (not nearly as important since you don't have internet;
still useful if you are going to import foreign files into the vm).
[http://www.wsusoffline.net/](http://www.wsusoffline.net/). You'll need a
different windows scapegoat machine to use wsusoffline though. I don't think
there is a linux version. Also, office 2010 on wine/crossover is perfectly
usable for light work. Office 2013 is also somewhat supported these days.

------
Filter
Two changes made a big difference for me in using Windows 10:

1\. Turning off Cortana using these instructions:
[https://www.howtogeek.com/265027/how-to-disable-cortana-
in-w...](https://www.howtogeek.com/265027/how-to-disable-cortana-in-
windows-10/)

2\. Turning off most of the visual effects under "Adjust the appearance and
performance of Windows." (I left "Smooth edges of screen fonts" and "Enable
Peek" checked)

The combination of these two change feels like a whole new computer.

~~~
krapp
I don't want to turn off Cortana, I want Cortana not to exist. How can I
accomplish that in Windows 10?

~~~
Tharre
Remove "C:\Windows\SystemApps\\* cortana* " with something like[0] to get
around "File is in use".

A fair warning though, [insert standard MIT style disclaimer].

[0]
[https://gist.github.com/Tharre/d900a5f6ce16701b441c4405abc36...](https://gist.github.com/Tharre/d900a5f6ce16701b441c4405abc3634a#file-
post-install_win10-ps1-L27)

------
MadSax
The only version of Windows 10 which prosumers want, they can't have.

~~~
cwyers
There are plenty of prosumers who don't want to serve as a functional IT
department in addition to everything else they have to do, who want features
like Bash on Windows, and who are generally fine with Pro.

------
Pica_soO
There is a whole Eco-system of tech-bloggers and tool-smiths, whos whole
working-life consists of ripping out the "improvements" Microsoft has shoveled
towards the users - riding binary rodeo with every update.

My assumption is that this Eco-system will rather soon bring the clumsy
Microsoft attempt to become google one stack-layer closer to the user to a
horrific end.

~~~
cududa
This has been going on since I got into the "Windows scene" 15 years ago with
Windows XP, slipstreaming and custom install INI's. It's no longer the area I
work in, but something tells me your prediction is probably as wrong as it was
when people were saying this exact same thing 15 years ago.

------
Animats
Now that's useful. I have a Windows 7 machine for the few things that don't
run on Linux. Windows 10 LTSB would be great for that.

I wonder if I can get Windows 10 LTSB preloaded by Central Computer, the
retailer. They installed Windows 7 with no bloatware for me. (I asked for
that, and the invoice actually reads "no bloatware")

------
mschuster91
> And Windows 10 Enterprise is only available to an organization with a volume
> licensing agreement, or through a new $7 per month subscription program

Given that it's basically free to register as a commercial entity (in Germany
it costs 40-50€, and iirc a British LLC can be formed for less), can one do
so, and then apply for said subscription program?

edit: are offerings like
[https://www.lizengo.de/microsoft/windows-10-enterprise](https://www.lizengo.de/microsoft/windows-10-enterprise)
actually legit, and can these be used to activate a LTSB installation?

~~~
JetSpiegel
Not sure if it's worth the hassle of setting up a company IRL just to use a
piece of software.

~~~
gambiting
in the UK it takes 10 minutes online to open a company and if you don't do
anything with it the only thing you need to do is add it on your annual tax
return, with all fields as zero since you are not actually trading. It's
almost zero effort.

~~~
maccard
> add it on your annual tax return

That's not doing nothing. That requires filling in a Self Assessment which
most people aren't doing

------
na85
>Windows 10 LTSB omits a lot of the new stuff in Windows 10. It doesn’t come
with the Windows Store, Cortana, or Microsoft Edge browser. It also omits
other Microsoft apps like Calendar, Camera, Clock, Mail, Money, Music, News,
OneNote, Sports, and Weather.

>In fact, the default Start menu on Windows 10 LTSB doesn’t even include a
single tile. You won’t find any of those new Windows 10 apps installed, aside
from the Settings app.

That sounds fantastic. I use absolutely none of those "features" and would
love to be able to remove them from my copy of windows 10.

~~~
Dylan16807
Is it really better to have IE11 and only IE11?

And the _ability_ to use the store is not a bad thing.

~~~
iaml
I have a local account and while store is there, I can't use it without
signing in with ms account. I'm not going to, so it's basically just wasting
space. I would rather it wasn't there completely.

~~~
techload
You could run this script: Make Windows 10 Great Again.
[https://gist.github.com/IntergalacticApps/675339c2b805b4c9c6...](https://gist.github.com/IntergalacticApps/675339c2b805b4c9c6e9a442e0121b1d)

~~~
drdaeman
Does that break Skype and parts of Azure portal and online Office suite?

Most of such scripts break things. And I see the usual suspects, like DNS
blocking client-s.gateway.messenger.live.com etc, so I think this one isn't an
exception.

~~~
techload
You can edit the script to remove what you don't want disabled/blocked.

------
itsoggy
I have deployed LTSB in a few schools I look after, it's far easier because of
the minimal feature set especially in smaller environments where full
enterprise management tools like System Centre and WSUS are not installed.

Go old school and customise the default profile in the build for best results!

The best part is that if you have education volume License You get both EDU
and Ent LTSB editions!

------
unicornporn
I was about to switch to this about a month ago but realized WSL __does not
__work with LTSB. So no BASH for Windows. It will probably be more than a year
too...

~~~
pas
The Bash that comes with Git (which uses msys AFAIK) works pretty well.

~~~
symlinkk
It uses MSYS2 actually, which is a completely different project.

~~~
mappu
To expand on that: MSYS was a fork of Cygwin 1.3, and MSYS2 is a fork of
Cygwin 1.7. (Babun is a distro of Cygwin, and Git-bash is a distro of MSYS2.)

------
thomasfedb
I'm a full time Fedora user. I run LTSB in the VM that I run Office 365 in and
it's perfect. No fuss, no bells, gets out of my way and just works.

------
andreasen
This seems to install a pretty 'good' win10 version:
[https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-
download/windows10s...](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-
download/windows10startfresh)

I had a Lenovo S500 dektop that I just reinstalled. Non-SSd. I was getting a
'100% disk usage' issue right of the bat. I installed 'windows10startfresh'
and now it's pretty sweet - pc is not slow, and such. The
'windows10startfresh' installs windows without all the lenovo crud apparently.

~~~
andreasen
I should have emphasized the machine is like a dream right now - without the
Lenovo cruft that is usually installed. Runs like a charm - where as the base
Lenovo install was slow - i mean really slow. and this is an i7 16gb machine.

------
sjellis
I'm both amused and angry that Windows 10 adopted the same model as the big
commercial Linux distributions: a fast-cycle OS that upgrades every 6 months
(but might have bugs), and a slow-moving version that they support for a long
time but won't suddenly change behavior or stop working with your hardware.

It is a proven model in the Linux world. The unpleasant thing is that
Microsoft shunted millions of users on to the equivalent of Fedora or non-LTS
Ubuntu without bothering to explain this.

~~~
kyberias
I'm sorry, what didn't they bother to explain? Why are you angry that they
adopted a release model that works well?

~~~
yjftsjthsd-h
They pushed everyone from major versions to rolling release.

------
Crontab
Microsoft should make this available for everyone. It sounds perfect.

~~~
dsr_
It's the precise opposite of the Extend and Embrace strategy which has worked
for them forever. I'm surprised they have it as a named product instead of a
set of bizarre Registry tweaks.

------
TazeTSchnitzel
I noticed that when I had Windows 8.1 installed on my PC earlier this year,
the version string mentioned LTSB. Does 8.1 use the kernel of 10's LTSB?

~~~
my123
winblue_ltsb means that it's the long term support branch, with no new
features and securuty updates only.

------
intopieces
I would be okay with a pay-as-you-go Windows 10 Enteprise subscription for
this LTSB. My use of Windows is very sporadic. If I could log in and pay $7
for the next 30 days official access then let it expire till I need it again,
I would be giving MSFT more money than I do now but would consider a fair
exchange for ongoing security updates.

~~~
jt2190
Have you tried their free virtual machines for browser testing?

[https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-
edge/tools/v...](https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-
edge/tools/vms/)

------
fsiefken
I also want the Classic Theme back, Classic like in NT4 classic, with the old
school minimize, maximize and close buttons.

~~~
Ezhik
Classic theme, classic explorer, classic task manager, classic everything.

Just admit it, you want to use NT4.

~~~
yjftsjthsd-h
...yes, that sounds nice. With security patches and drivers for modern
hardware.

------
mqatrombone
LTSB = Embedded

~~~
omgtehlion
More like Server 2016.

In embedded version you have more fine-grained pick of components to install,
and you do this before even storing your image to installation media.

