Slimdown10 – turn Windows 10 22H2 or LTSC 2021 into classic/legacy Windows

Try normal Windows 10 Pro (22H2) and you will see how it looks and behaves.
If you are migrating from Windows 7, you should be satisfied out of the box.

 

Hey, everyone! I'm hoping someone could help me. I've used this to slim down Windows 10 but for some reason it keeps my PKG Power at around 11.5+.W (watts) What I'm talking about is that I use ThrottleStop to undervolt because the laptop I use can get pretty hot. Usually after a fresh install and everything goes correctly, the PKG Power should sit around 0.4-0.5 W (watts), but with this "mod", it's sitting around 11.5 W like I said. This also usually means my dedicated GPU is being toggled on (I'm on a laptop, 1660 Ti). This model of laptop has had issues with this sort of thing, most of it is with the outdated BIOS, but I can 95% of the time get the wattage to 0.4-0.5 watts after a fresh install. If someone knows what could be triggering the increased watt usage, I'd appreciate it. My CPU usage is 0% so it's hard to pinpoint what could be doing this. Sorry for the long post. Thanks for any help. PS: everything feels like butter so I really would love to take advantage of this and I thank the creator for taking the time in making it.

 

Thank you for your reply, and I understand your reasoning behind not supporting LTSC out-of-the-box since it's a lot of work supporting even the one (Pro), and thank you for your effort in putting all this together. However I was referring to the part where you encougared other people taking up the torch in supporting LTSC, and as some users seem to have made this work with LTSC I was just enquiring from them, not trying to nag you about your decision.

Correct if I'm wrong, but I understood these being they key differences between LTSC and Pro editions:

Pro:
- Constant updates
- Gets new features as they are released
- Support for all features included in Windows
- Great amount of bloat and telemetry out-of-the-box (which can be mostly removed)
- Best for the typical user

LTSC:
- Only bug fixes and security patches as they are released
- More stable, get feature updates later than the general public
- Many features are removed and need to be installed manually if they are needed
- Much less bloat and telemetry (still has some which needs to be removed)
- Best for users who want less updates and don't mind to tinker every now and then if a new feature they need needs to be added manually

So when I install Windows for friends and family, Pro is the right choice. However, for me, LTSC is the right choice. I care about stability, cleanliness and less frequent updates over convenience of having all the features preinstalled and working should you need them. I don't mind having to install a feature I need manually, in fact that's exactly what I want, I rather have nothing preinstalled and install whatever I need as I go. In fact, I wouldn't mind staying on Windows 7 forever if it was still receiving support from hardware/software vendors but as this isn't the case this isn't an option anymore. When even major internet browsers are dropping support, the game is over.

Microsoft in the recent years has a very bad track record in slipping new telemetry and bloat in their updates. I'd presume this happens to much less extent in the LTSC version. So if using Pro, that would mean needing to disable Windows Update and vet every single update (which are frequent, mind you) whether they are trying to push some crap unto me. On LTSC, presumably I could keep Windows Update enabled and get the bug fixes and security updates without worrying (as much) that they're trying to pull some crap.

Unfortunately LTSC still isn't perfect and has telemetry/bloat which needs to be removed. So going LTSC isn't the solution on itself, as you still need something exactly like this. So how I see it, LTSC+Slimdown10 would be the best solution possible when Windows 7 is no longer an option.

Spoiler: M$ RANT

I understand very well that your decision about LTSC is specifically about licensing and having to keep everything above board in a corporate setting. It doesn't make me mad at you, but it makes me mad at Microsoft.

Having to buy a special license to not get unwanted crap forced upon you is utterly reprehensible. Microsoft is clearly abusing their position and the technological illiteracy of the general public to be able to pull this crap. It's important to understand that the usual "if you don't like the product, then don't use it" does not apply to Windows, as most people in the world simply have to use it.

It's very clear to me that they are back to their monopolistic practices again. Remember when Microsoft got sued hard because of only including Internet Explorer as the default browser, but not even forcing anyone to use it? That was considered to be illegal and unfair market practices back then. They were even under threat of having to be broken apart into smaller companies.

Presumably from fear created by narrowly escaping getting hammered down under anti-monopoly laws, they behaved well for many years after that, kept to their core business of creating operating systems and welcomed other vendors to create software for it and kept Windows itself relatively open.

But in the recent times, as the Internet Explorer debacle is pretty much ancient history now, they are back to their tricks again, seeing how much they can push and get away with, and as the general public is complacent they've found out that it's a lot. The s**t that is happening today: forced telemetry, forced data gathering from users, deep integration of their own products like Bing/Cortana/Store/Xbox/... in the operating system itself makes the things they did back in the day seem tame in comparison, and frankly I don't understand how they are able to get away with it now as they are much more clearly monopolistic and illegal than what they did with Internet Explorer.

I do agree with that software needs to be purchased and the creators compensated. This is obvious, and this is how world works. But for most companies in the world, they have to compete by making a good product and not treating their customers like s**t or no longer have customers who switch to a competitor. But this is not the case for Microsoft, since there is no viable alternative to Windows. So while purchasing a regular Windows license and then using LTSC instead is a legally gray area, I find it to be simply a response to their monopolistic, immoral and illegal practices. That being the case, I have absolutely no moral conundrums about doing just that.

 

You are wrong
They do not differ at all, at least not for modders.

Because:
- you can remove every bloatware from Win10 Pro (not most of it, but literally everything), so you will have OS identical (or cleaner) to LTSC
on the other side:
- you can install lacking stuff on LTSC (like Microsoft Store) and thus you will have OS almost identical to classic Pro.

It is just matter of licensing and maybe support lifecycle. However it is quite possible, that Windows 10 Pro could be still updated after EOL (like WinXP, WinVista, Win7 and Win8 in the past).
So this entire debate Pro vs LTSC is pointless when we are talking about modded (and not original) Windows 10 installations.

 

There are literally zero benefits of switching from Pro to LTSC, except that you are switching from legal to pirated software.
Slimmed down Pro version has not the same level of cleanness as LTSC, but is even more clean.
This is the fact, which can be easily proven via real life tests (including Wireshark or TCPdump for checking unwanted network traffic / telemetry).

 

My scenario is similar.

I migrated from Windows 7 Ultimate to Windows 10 and stumbled upon this thread on this forum.

I had originally switched to Windows 10 IoT LTSC, but support for this script for this particular version is ... missing. Still, this was my first few minutes at all on Windows 10. I'd actually stick with Windows 10 IoT LTSC if this script supported it officially, as I think many users would also be headed straight for IoT LTSC. The script was throwing errors and…

But then I went directly to Windows 10 Education. According to information on the internet - the Education edition is even better/cleaner/ than the Pro version.

I don't know if I'm wrong, but I don't want to start an unnecessary controversy about whether Education is the better choice compared to the Pro version. But I bet on Education and so far I'm satisfied. Well, the script is really great and I'm extremely happy with the end result. Sometimes before that you need to read through the pages in this thread to get your bearings, because it was strange to me that System restore was turned off. Perhaps most useful tips should be placed in the first opinion, because for me System restore sometimes has a decisive effect if it is enabled.

On the other hand - we have the bitter taste that there is no offline version of the script, because with its new version - whatever it is - the changes will only be there when you use the script online and rework some new monthly ISO release and it is necessary reinstall Windows 10, then install every single program that a given user needs, then specific settings - which are needed throughout the system and... it turns out that a new version of this script = a new installation of Windows 10, in order to have the current changes... In practice, this is unacceptable for me and I am waiting for an offline version of the current version to be offered, but lately there is none. And so.

 

No, it isn't.
Just use Windows Update once a month (or install monthly cumulative update manually) and forget about any new version.
It is already mature tool. It is nonsense to reinstall Windows with every minor update.

 

Funny that you mentioned WireShark, as that is actually the first reason I want the OS to have zero telemetry and be clean as possible. Obviously I do have a moral objection towards telemetry too, but the main reason is that as I dabble in security research, I don't want my wireshark logs to be full of crap by default which is super frustrating to shift through.

The updates for Pro and LTSC are different though, right? And the feature set isn't completely the same, even after the script? If you imaged the Pro and LTSC systems after slimdown, they are not 1:1 identical with the only exception being the license, right?
Whatever the case, Pro will reach EOS on 2025 which is pretty soon compared to LTSC's 2032. I'm sure there will be workarounds but I see LTSC as the more straightforward option.

 

They don't have to. Why they should be 1:1 identical ?
What is your point ?
They should be clean and have the same core, but it doesn't mean that they have to be 1:1 identical.

Same situation like with Windows XP and Windows 7.
When software vendors (like Chrome) and hardware vendors drop support for it, your OS will be effectively dead and official EOL date will be pretty meaningless.

 

They are very different in policies, something you can't change with a lame script (unless you use my SKUswitch, but at that point just use the plain LTSC)

Obviously they aren't, you can make them very close (what I call GhettoLTSC), but not using this script.

Obviusly.

 

Guy, can you just stop spamming my threads ?
Create your own script and your own topic.

 

Please, how to help this great tool remove Notepad.exe and Wordpad.exe?. Thank you very much for your advice and thanks for the great script.
Zdenek

 

does the latest release have stuff for online.? could you made online version.?

 

I think I already explained my reasoning. I "trust" the LTSC update channel more than the Pro update channel to not try to pull shady s**t.

Remember that Win7 got a bulk of it's telemetry updates pushed near the end of its standard lifecycle when MS were pushing people to update Windows 10. And not only telemetry, but those EOS nags and the worst of it all, those "update to windows 10" updates which forcefully updated people from Windows 7 to Windows 10. If you weren't careful, you would suddenly find yourself in Windows 10 after a reboot or having your computer not boot at all after a update. I see this could definitely happen again with Win10 standard editions, but I'm certain they wouldn't try anything like that with the LTSC channel. Having less frequent updates on top of that is also a huge plus for me.

It's also a plus if there is less junk to force being disabled with group policies, registry tweaks or deleting services if they aren't there to begin with. Even if that is so that you can disable/remove everyhing in Pro which doesn't exist in LTSC, there's no telling beforehand if a Pro update won't try to reinstall something or have some incompatibility because of trying to update a component it presumes exists in Pro by default.

If you didn't need updates at all, in that case I guess it wouldn't make any difference which edition to use. But you can also turn the argument other way around, of "why take Pro over LTSC, given the choice".

Ultimately there is no need to get in arguments over choice. I respect your choice, and ask you to respect mine. Simple as that.

I was just asking the people who posted earlier in the thread of getting this to work with LTSC, that how they done it. Nothing more than that, with no ill intent towards anyone.

 

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tried my best ...
You better test it on your VM -
before use it on your real machine

 

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Typically, if not specifically otherwise defined, "1" means yes or true, and "0" means no or false. So:

DisableSearchIndexing=0 means no, do not disable the Search Index, so Search Indexing remains Enabled
DisableSearchIndexing=1 means yes, do Disable Search Indexing, so Search Indexing becomes Disabled
IntegrateUpdates=1 means yes, Integrate Updates

"0" and "1" do not normally have predefined meanings as far as "enabled" or "disabled", but rather "no" or "yes", or "false" or "true". So whether the specific option becomes enabled or disabled depends on the "wording" of the option.