Hello. I am building a new system (Ryzen 3900x / 32 GB of 3600 MHz RAM), for general use, some gaming and video editing (Premiere) and most of all, audio production. Not exactly delighted with Telemetry, Cortana, Microsoft Store, Candy Crush, Edge and the rest of Windows 10 bloatware, I was initially going to just install LTSC but I've decided that I want to be able to install *some* Windows updates if/when I fee like. Latest version is supposedly better optimized for Ryzen 9, there's the FLS limit fix (very important for audio) and as much as I dislike bloatware, I'd rather not being stuck in a version I will have to wait a lot before I get an update/feature I might want. So naturally I plan on trimming a Pro or Enterprise iso with a tool such as MSMG Toolkit or NTLite. I've got a few questions: 1. Will creating a custom lightweight Windows installation with tools like that perform as well as LTSC? 2. I understand MSMG Toolkit is limited and not really guiding you with info/descriptions about each component you are able to remove, which is helpful if you are new to this. However, the proper version of the latter isn't free. Is there a free tool as good as NTLite? 3. When it comes to updates I guess I want more or less the Windows 7 experience. Getting pretty much every security update, getting important updates for important components and in general being given the choice to pick what I want to install or not. How can I do that? 4. It's the first PC I am putting together myself and I am reading that the first thing to after installing Windows is letting it update itself. Should I do that? I think it's important to do so in order to receive crucial, important updates and find drivers for my hardware etc. but how do I make sure it doesn't download and reinstall bloatware I removed with the trimming tools effectively destroying my tidy, lightweight plan? 5. Is it possible to download the latest important updates and include them to my custom ISO so everything is up to date before I even install? 6. How do I remove Cortana without screwing windows search (bar) up? 7. I've also ran into another tool here (aptly named...well...debloating tool, now allowed to post links) which makes it clear that by removing Internet Explorer and Media Player it may cause some games that rely on the libraries from them to not work. Is that the case with NTLite and the other tools as well? 8. Is there a way to remove telemetry completely on Windows Pro or that's only possible with the Enterprise (not LTSC) version so I should just get that one? 9. Is there a community project like Simplix allowing you to download just the important/no bloatware/telemetry updates with ease? Thanks!
LTSC is just as "heavy weight" as normal non LTSC SKUs, chopping will only lead to future problems. If you need guidance, on what knowledge do you base your intentions of a need to "modify"? There are just a few updates (SSU/CU/Flash/DotnetFX35-48 CU), not like 7 and 8.1 with many updates. 1809 : https://forums.mydigitallife.net/th...-17763-xxx-pc-rs5.77945/page-216#post-1490183 1903/9 : https://forums.mydigitallife.net/th...pc-19h1-2-release.79259/page-148#post-1525792 2004 : https://forums.mydigitallife.net/th...pc-20h1-vb_release.80763/page-16#post-1571109 Use W10UI for online/offline integration.
Thanks for the reply. Is it? Because I've seen MANY people claiming it's more lightweight and performs better since it lacks all the bloatware. Well, as I have explained I really don't need the likes of Telemetry, Cortana, Microsoft Store, Candy Crush, Edge, Social Media tiles, Xbox stuff etc. consuming resources, hard disk space and being a visual noise. I am certainly no dev or possess the technical knowledge many people have in this forum, but I'm not a beginner either. I was hoping that by doing my homework, watch along a video about Ntlite and remove stuff with caution rather than going apes**t (not sure I'd try removing anything else other than what I've mentioned) I'd be able to get a cleaner installation that performs better. So do you recommend against it and suggest that sticking to utilities such as O&O ShutUp10 might be a better idea?
Claiming is not fact, most is a fantasy. All mentioned stuff doesn't hog any resources, when not used. As said before, removing apps doesn't improve anything and removing components only leads to unstable installs and future problems (for which MSFT gets blamed). Those with technical knowledge about the subject made their own tool, or the info is being accumulated in the Telemetry Repository.
So you are suggesting to simply install Pro and not try to mess with anything since everything works great as it is supposed to? Isn't this more or less a sort of beta release? If so, wouldn't be better to go for 1909 instead?
Windows 10 is one continuous rolling beta release where each release is followed by another beta release. Version 2004 is most likely as ready as it will ever be but 1909 (and LTSC if that's what you want) is fine. The difference in LTSC and other versions comes down to "in what way do you want to be annoyed." LTSC can be a pain if you one day decide you want to play some xbox games or whatever, and non-LTSC consumer editions can be annoying with useless crap apps you'll never use and ads. Debloat all you want, but there's a learning curve. All versions basically have the same performance for programs and games.