
Windows 10 Debloat Script - wsdookadr
https://github.com/W4RH4WK/Debloat-Windows-10
======
giancarlostoro
I tried running this and then I remembered why I stopped tweaking Windows, I
wind up running into odd issues. Windows stopped being unstable for me years
ago when I stopped fidgeting with features. I'm better off disabling as much
as I can through the normal settings they provide. I don't know if it's just
I'm doing something wrong but it's been my experience.

I would love to see Windows not take up 4 gigs of RAM out of the box. I don't
need Cortana running period. Let me uninstall Cortana please Microsoft. I'm
sure there's other crap I don't want but I fear if I can't just hit
'Uninstall' it wont go well, or an update will bring it back.

~~~
mehrdadn
> I would love to see Windows not take up 4 gigs of RAM out of the box.

It... doesn't? I feel like last time I tried it was less than 2? Did you only
install Windows or a ton of other things too?

This is what it looks like "out of the box" after disabling memory compression
and the pagefile: [https://imgur.com/a/D5b8bk5](https://imgur.com/a/D5b8bk5)

~~~
giancarlostoro
On Windows 10? I closed everything except Firefox (and this HN tab), which is
taking up 600MB of RAM, and now it's at 4.6GB of RAM. Before with two
instances of GoLand, Slack and Discord open it was over at 8GB of RAM.

~~~
zlynx
On a Windows 10 VM set to 2 GB of RAM, Windows idles at about 1.1 GB.

On a 16 GB Windows it uses about 7.5 GB. All of that seems to swap out or go
away somewhere if I get busy with Visual Studio.

On a 64 GB Windows it seems to idle at about 9.6 GB used. Of course, this one
isn't a purely work machine and has Steam, Origin, Ubisoft's thing, etc, etc.

So Windows 10 is pretty variable. I imagine it has something to do with
running various services in parallel.

~~~
mehrdadn
What quantity are you measuring that's 7.5 GB... and what else do you have on
that machine? I quit Chrome on my current machine which has a bunch of other
stuff and has no less RAM than yours, and even then I was left with <4GB of
anything I could regard as usage. It can't possibly be just Windows itself
idling at 7.5 GB?

------
jclay
I was surprised to find on a recent reinstall of Windows 10 that it no longer
included the start menu full of sponsored apps and games. It was a pretty
minimal install, all things considered. This was with the Education edition
which is a derivative of the Pro edition I believe.

I’d also highly recommend the BoxStarter setup scripts [0]. They remove all of
the unnecessary default applications, perform windows updates, apply sane
developer defaults and install development tooling depending on your needs.
It’s a one click run, so it’s a pretty easy way to bootstrap a new install. No
negative side effects and have been using them for several years.

0\. [https://github.com/microsoft/windows-dev-box-setup-
scripts](https://github.com/microsoft/windows-dev-box-setup-scripts)

~~~
newlytread
I installed pro just the other day, which came with the game shortcuts. I
think I just have been installing enterprise previously

~~~
panpanna
It is very annoying to have to explain to your boss why you have that game
installed on your machine.

Specially when his only IT experience is playing Candy Crush with his kids.

------
wsdookadr
This will disable a number of different apps/services/features that are either
useless or slow down the OS considerably.

The following script is even nicer as it comes with an UI:

[https://github.com/Sycnex/Windows10Debloater](https://github.com/Sycnex/Windows10Debloater)

Both are written in powershell.

~~~
floatingatoll
This is marginally less terrible, but it's still terrible — for example, it
considers Skype "bloat" so hopefully you didn't need that! — and the list goes
on as you read through the (thankfully, fewer) scripts.

~~~
throwaway2048
its not hard to reinstall if you actually want it, it most certainly is
bloaty.

~~~
vitorgrs
It's iMessage bloat on iOS or macOS?

------
what-the-grump
Just needs to stamp registry with, ran this script on X date, so I can tell
the user exactly when and what time they broke windows before reinstalling the
OS.

Do not run these scripts they are always making it worse.

------
davesmith1983
This is interesting. I was using the ShutUp10 tool (I am not affiliated).

[https://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10](https://www.oo-
software.com/en/shutup10)

That lists what it considers "Safe" things to turn off and I generally keep to
that.

I would however want to try this in a VM before running it.

~~~
0-_-0
W10Privacy is another great alternative

~~~
XzetaU8
Windows Privacy Dashboard (WPD)

Unlike the aforesaid two tools it supports not only Windows 10, but 7,8,8.1 as
well.

[1] [https://wpd.app/](https://wpd.app/)

------
floatingatoll
Do your friends a favor and _never_ run this or any like it on their systems
"for their benefit".

This is a prime example of "expert user footgun problem".

The phrase "debloat" is a marketing-hype word that's being used to bait you
all into someone's personal view of how computers should be. Expect to be
forced to reinstall Windows 10 a few days or weeks after running any such
script.

Whenever I tech support any of my friends, the first question I ask is "did
you do expert-user things to your system?" and they say "well, I mean, I
edited some Registry settings" and I just stop and tell them to reinstall
Windows because it's time to amputate. I'll have to add "Have you ever opened
Windows PowerShell?" to my list, because that'll catch all of these right out
of the gate.

In case that's not reason enough to be afraid — check out this random sampling
of changes this makes!

* "This script disables Windows Defender" — Because anti-malware protection is "bloat"

* "Disable 'Updates are available' message" — Because you shouldn't have to be notified when security updates are available for your system, for example to address zero-day RCEs

* "Windows Biometric Service" — And suddenly you can't face-login to your Windows 10 computer any longer, but hey, it's "bloat"

* "Disable easy access keyboard stuff" — Because no one would ever use keyboard accessibility, that's just "bloat"

* "Restoring old volume slider" — I would get that this was "debloat" if it _removed_ the volume slider, but simply restoring an older one?

* "PandoraMediaInc.29680B314EFC2", "SpotifyAB.SpotifyMusic" — Hope you don't like streaming music, that's just "bloat" anyways

And, consider how easily this repo could be compromised to result in you self-
infecting your computer with malware by running all of these scripts without a
close review of the steps they take. First step in any persistent Windows
infection is to disable Windows Defender and Windows Update notifications so
the user doesn't take steps that might uninstall the persistent infection.
Repo does that _already_ , so it's not like it'd be difficult.

~~~
ashleyn
I question why Windows continues to need increasingly demanding and intrusive
anti-malware when Mac and Linux get along just fine without it. The
architecture of Windows must be aging terribly if the only way one can keep it
safe is by humongous and intrusive real time scanning. My experiences with
Windows Defender's realtime protection has not been pleasant. Almost one core
being used exclusively to check every network and filesystem operation. I
recommend if users have _any_ security common sense whatsoever they can safely
disable Defender and manually run it once a month.

~~~
floatingatoll
Mac has intrusive anti-malware that is almost a carbon copy of Windows
Defender, or used to be anyways (perhaps one or the other have changed in the
past few years!). See also
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20407233](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20407233)

Linux is a wasteland of terrible security practices that sysadmins excuse as
"acceptable" for their own workstations and servers because they think that
locking down SSH is sufficient defense against e.g. malicious infections or
"curl | bash".

I'm sorry that Defender has harmed you, but that's no excuse to recommend
others disable automated Defender scans on some sort of schedule.

~~~
jrochkind1
The link you link to is "Apple has pushed a silent Mac update to remove hidden
Zoom web server."

It has little to do with the functions of Windows Defender. It was a special
purpose function removing one very particular file from a specific location.
It was not scanning your whole system, or downloads, for malware signatures.

When you say MacOS includes software that is "almost a carbon copy of Windows
Defender," are you talking about something else? I am not aware of anything
that comes with MacOS that has similar features to Windows Defender.

~~~
cwyers
macOS has had malware detection since Snow Leopard:

[https://www.osnews.com/story/22059/snow-leopard-to-
include-a...](https://www.osnews.com/story/22059/snow-leopard-to-include-anti-
virusmalware/)

------
thelazydogsback
Windows 10 started out snappy (boot and usage) and responsive and has remained
so for me w/o changing any defaults and taking all updates -- IMHO the best
Win yet. I'm sure there is bloat there, but if I don't see it, disk/ssd is
cheap. (Resharper is the only beast that seems to cause issues.)

------
FluffyKitty
I have to ask, for anyone that cares this much, why bother with Windows at
this point? Wouldn't it be easier to just use Linux?

I know the usual argument is that you need Windows to game, but why make your
gaming instance your main work instance too? Why not dual boot and use Linux
for work and Windows for gaming?

~~~
noir_lord
I do dual boot.

I have windows for gaming/VR but zero development.

I have Fedora for literally everything else including C#/WPF development (I
run my dev environment for windows inside a VM as it makes it very simple to
backup and I know that the somewhat irritating setup is perfectly replicated).

Essentially at this point Win10 is relegated to been a massive console OS.

I could likely run a lot of my games on Linux but I'm not enough of a purist
that the hassle makes it worth it, down time is precious and I'd rather not
fight it debugging why a particular game is been weird.

I'm likely to upgrade my 2700X soon so I might slap an ATI card in alongside
my RTX2080 so I can use the 2080 with an iommu pass through and then I could
game on a separate windows VM inside Fedora.

~~~
shrimp_emoji
I doubted Proton for so long. It's not problem-free, but I get 144 Hz in Elite
Dangerous, and all it takes is the "force this game to run in Proton" checkbox
in Steam. Wow.

I was encouraged to try it after I saw its platinum rating on ProtonDB:
[https://www.protondb.com/](https://www.protondb.com/)

I don't think I'll ever do GPU passthru though; that's 3hard5me.

~~~
noir_lord
It’s gotten better but yeah there still issues, that’s why I like dual
booting, windows gives me no issues for gaming if that’s all you do and Fedora
has been rocksteady back to 25 when I switched, my work machine has gone from
26 to 30 via in place upgrades which I always expect to fail but so far never
have.

I may play with Proton at some point though if the games I play are properly
supported, mostly though my gaming time is spent on the Rift S playing Project
Cars 2, combined with a nice force feedback wheel and pedals (Logitech G920)
its a really good experience, I didn’t expect VR to be so compelling actually,
it’s not perfect but damn is it impressive when you are going the Nurburgring
in the dark as snow blows past your car and you look left and see a car coming
up in your mirrors.

I think I’m a convert and I’m eagerly waiting for what the next generation can
bring.

Elite Dangerous is incredible in VR as well btw.

------
grenoire
I would also like to plug O&O Shutup10 here, allows you to disable (seemingly
safely, in my experience) most annoying Windowz 'features:' [https://www.oo-
software.com/en/shutup10](https://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10)

~~~
nickjj
This is what I use. It works really well.

------
buro9
There is an easier way (for those with access to the version of Windows
involved):

    
    
        Windows 10 N LTSB / LTSC
    

N = No media things built-in, so you'll need to install VLC if that's a
concern.

LTSB / LTSC = Long-Term Servicing Branch / Long-Term Servicing Channel. This
is really the killer thing but it comes with catches. You'll get an absolutely
stable Windows and to achieve that a load of things are removed by Microsoft.

[https://www.computerworld.com/article/3250464/faq-
windows-10...](https://www.computerworld.com/article/3250464/faq-
windows-10-ltsb-explained.html)

> LTSB does not include Edge nor any Microsoft Store (Universal Windows
> Platform, or UWP) apps, whether Redmond-made or third-part, because the
> browser and those apps constantly change and need updating. Also AWOL: the
> Cortana voice-activated digital assistant and access to the Microsoft Store.

And for the HN community... lack of Microsoft Store means that you are not
running Ubuntu on Windows.

~~~
zamadatix
> N = No media things built-in, so you'll need to install VLC if that's a
> concern.

Is an understatement, if you play games expect to install the media pack or
have many break. Some apps in the office suite also rely on them so if you use
that you've created trouble for yourself. Also RDP client/server can't run
hardware accelerated since that uses the video playback API.

> And for the HN community... lack of Microsoft Store means that you are not
> running Ubuntu on Windows.

Not true, the store is a front end and LTSB still supports appx:
[https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install-
manual](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install-manual)

------
CommanderData
Been using this [https://github.com/Disassembler0/Win10-Initial-Setup-
Script](https://github.com/Disassembler0/Win10-Initial-Setup-Script) script
for over a year and it's been my goto to fix Windows 10 after a fresh install.

It's purely Powershell based unlike some other binary based tools out there,
clean, in a single file. I'd say it doesn't use any hacks either to stop
telemetry.

Keep in mind Windows will revert some settings occasionally after a Windows
update.

------
lame-robot-hoax
If you’re going go to all this trouble to “debloat” Windows, why not just
install Fedora/Ubuntu/PopOS/Debian/Manjaro or something?

I just don’t see the point with fiddling around with little hacks trying to
disable telemetry and stuff when you can just install a Linux distro and be
done with it.

I mean sure depending on your use case that may not be possible, but if you
don’t have a certain software or hardware limitation holding you to Windows, I
really don’t see why you wouldn’t just use a Linux distro.

~~~
majkinetor
WTF, its not like you don't customize your linux system, is it ? Default
Ubuntu is just as bad as default anything. I customize the shit out of it and
lots of people do - just serach for dot files on github...

~~~
brianush1
The point is that Linux distros are customizable by default, whereas you need
to work against Windows to customize it, and all your changes will probably be
reverted in the next update.

------
jron
LTSB. A huge chunk of bloat is disabled/missing by default.

------
majkinetor
Great debloater, I use it for years, along with bunch of other developers I
know. It may produce a problem here and there but its well worth it and
produces lighting fast system. Highly recommended and kudos to W4RHRWK for
maintaining it so long.

------
octosphere
Hmm, I wonder what happens when I combine this with other popular scripts like
_Make Windows 10 Great Again_
[https://gist.github.com/IntergalacticApps/675339c2b805b4c9c6...](https://gist.github.com/IntergalacticApps/675339c2b805b4c9c6e9a442e0121b1d)
and _Reclaim-Windows10_ [https://github.com/alirobe/Reclaim-
Windows10](https://github.com/alirobe/Reclaim-Windows10) is there much overlap
between all three scripts or do they all work great in tandem?

~~~
floatingatoll
There is a ton of overlap and they all cargo-cult copy-paste from each other's
tools, complete with "fixes" for bugs that one or the other introduces (for
example, "whitelist Windows Calculator" is quite hilarious to see in the
errata).

------
wsdookadr
Another mention would be TronScript which is described here:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/TronScript/wiki/index](https://www.reddit.com/r/TronScript/wiki/index)

It can be downloaded from one of these mirrors:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/TronScript/wiki/downloads](https://www.reddit.com/r/TronScript/wiki/downloads)

~~~
BubRoss
That looks like it runs lots of anti virus software which is usually a huge
offender in slowing a computer down.

------
Fnoord
> Please replace it with something better, either use Classic Shell or Start
> is Back, but stop using that shit.

Classic Shell is dead, long live its successor Open Shell [1]

[1] [https://github.com/Open-Shell/Open-Shell-Menu](https://github.com/Open-
Shell/Open-Shell-Menu)

------
robk
I found this one a little more upto date for the latest 1809 update. The
blacklist option lets you easily choose what to Uninstall
[https://github.com/Sycnex/Windows10Debloater](https://github.com/Sycnex/Windows10Debloater)

------
petepete
I'm considering my first Windows workstation in more than a decade and was
planning on Windows for Workstations precisely because I don't want to remove
all the packaged crap.

£300 is quite the premium though.

------
etaioinshrdlu
I have Windows 10 LTSC running in a VM and it seems pretty bloat-free to me.
Anyone else using this, any experiences?

It's a free trial for 90 days too.

The only thing I noticed so far was forced-auto updates and reboots...

------
sakesun
Zillion thanks for whoever post this. My 7 years old laptop just got massively
faster than ever.

------
vkaku
Okay, this stuff is great.

The question is: Why can't Microsoft just release Windows 10 Core?

------
Tempest1981
Are there any Win10 themes - to make it look more like Win7?

------
spunch
i'm just gonna leave this here

[https://github.com/Disassembler0/Win10-Initial-Setup-
Script](https://github.com/Disassembler0/Win10-Initial-Setup-Script)

------
jokowueu
Nice

------
fieryskiff1
Like most "Debloat" scripts and apps, it also disables some services that
result in overall less secure installation.

------
Krasnol
It's astonishing how many de-bloat scripts, tools or functions of other tools
this OS spawned. That should make the developers think...if it wasn't intended
and they didn't give a damn because monopoly...

~~~
cwyers
People have been installing pointless and bad tune-up apps for PCs for
decades. People were installing RAM doublers for Windows 95 that just changed
the size of the hard disk cache. All of those registry cleaners were awful.
And I'm continually shocked at how many people will just run some random
Powershell script off the Internet with elevated access rights. You don't
trust Microsoft, but you trust some random Github repo? 'Kay.

------
siphon22
Funny coincidence, I recently debloated my W10 with a script as well. I saw
the one in the OP during my search, but ultimately didn't go with it as it
didn't look legit to me compared to another one that I found mentioned in a
article guide.

Used this one:

[https://github.com/Sycnex/Windows10Debloater](https://github.com/Sycnex/Windows10Debloater)

This one does not affect anything to do with Windows Update and any important
system stuff from my experience.

~~~
ohazi
I like this one:

[https://www.debian.org/distrib/netinst](https://www.debian.org/distrib/netinst)

:-)

~~~
siphon22
What's the Linux hack/solution to changing the battery charging thresholds? I
really enjoy that feature with this W10/Laptop right now. Battery has been at
75% for the last two days, so it's not charging and just being sustained while
my laptop is running entirely from the plugged in charger unless I'm mistaken.
I really enjoy that. Windows also seems to have gotten much better at power
efficiency overall.

~~~
ohazi
There's a utility called TLP that can get you most of the way there. It's not
perfect, but I've found it useful on the newer thinkpads with dual batteries
(one embedded + one removable).

[https://linrunner.de/en/tlp/docs/tlp-linux-advanced-power-
ma...](https://linrunner.de/en/tlp/docs/tlp-linux-advanced-power-
management.html)

[https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/TLP](https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/TLP)

------
codetrotter
This still leaves a lot of undesirable stuff on your system.

Here, I prefer something like this.

[https://sourceforge.net/projects/dban/files/dban/dban-2.3.0/...](https://sourceforge.net/projects/dban/files/dban/dban-2.3.0/dban-2.3.0_i586.iso/download)

Darik's Boot and Nuke — A hard drive disk wipe and data clearing utility

And then download and install KDE Neon User Edition from
[https://neon.kde.org/download](https://neon.kde.org/download)

KDE Neon is a Linux distro based on Ubuntu.

Yes I am being a bit facetious, sorry.

But I am actually curious, how many people on HN run Windows on their
computers vs the number of people that run macOS, Linux or one of the BSDs?

~~~
2T1Qka0rEiPr
I run Windows on my personal laptop - not because I love it, but because it
certainly _used to_ have a huge strong-hold on media and games apps, which I
wanted a way of consuming.

I no longer game, but as I understand it, support for Linux has greatly
improved. Also I used to watch Sky (UK), which is only available for Windows
users (first because they were literally using Silverlight up until about a
year ago, and now because its only available as an Electron app...).

For my next machine I think I'll just move to Ubuntu. Having said that,
looking at some of the apps I _do_ still use (such as VPNs, Google Drive,
Spotify), many of them would either work less well, or simply not work at all.
It's a shame, but what can you do?

~~~
codetrotter
Spotify works fine on Linux in my experience though I mostly use Spotify on my
iPhone, not on my Linux desktop but I sometimes use it there and don’t have
any complaints.

Linux has excellent support for VPN. VPN providers on the other hand may be
bad at providing proper guidance for Linux users. In that case I suggest
either switching to a VPN provider that has the guides you need, or searching
for good guides made by others about how to do it with your provider of
choice.

Google Drive you are right about. If acceptable to you you might consider
switching to Dropbox instead. Dropbox worked great on Linux last time I used
Dropbox.

Keep in mind that it is a good idea to pick hardware that has good Linux
support. The problem for a lot of people is that they buy some random laptop
without taking this into consideration, and then try to run Linux on it and
might be unlucky.

Personally I run Linux on my desktop with hardware that I chose specifically
based on finding out that it would work.

And my laptop now is a MacBook Air running macOS.

Linux desktop. macOS laptop. Great combo IMO.

~~~
2T1Qka0rEiPr
Yep, Spotify I use every day on Linux and it _does_ work fine, but it's not
quite as easy to install (though this is the _best_ it gets on my list).

VPN support would be fine wrt OpenVPN, but I'm using NordVPN. To be fair I
just checked and they also have a .deb so that's fine too.

Drive is a pain, Dropbox suggestion is good. IIRC I've used "Grive" before,
and it worked, but wasn't a delight to use.

Definitely agree on hardware. Even the XPS range from Dell which offers Linux
pre-installed has been pretty choppy in the past. I'm using a Thinkpad now and
imo it's the best option.

I can't do macs, that's the one thing!

