Technology

Closest thing to that is using Windows Enterprise. Here is previous PSA of mine...

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PSA, for people sticking to Windows:

You can get a reasonable level of privacy by installing Windows Enterprise via RUFUS, which also has options for removing restrictions during installation. Massgravel is used to activate your copy of Windows, the Github also having .ISOs for you to use with RUFUS.

ShutUp10 is a piece of software that goes a step further, allowing you to toggle off many bad things, uninstall Microsoft's AI, and gives a description of what you are tweaking does. The premium version also automatically applies your settings at all times, reverting Microsoft's constant tweaking of your settings.

RUFUS

Massgravel

ShutUp10

Lol, Microsoft will never give up on telemetry and spying

https://www.tomshardware.com/software/windows-11-identifier-used-to-track-scattered-spider-perp-after-microsoft-shared-info-with-fbi-19-year-old-us-estonian-hacker-arrested-over-alleged-ties-to-infamous-extortion-group

If you are techy enough you could install a cracked version of w11 pro or LTSC, then use amiliorated or any other decrapifier. As well Chris titus script can help. This will remove all telemetry and various MS malware.

Im using it since a while to game and it's great. Also not memory intensive and no shit running in the background or reinstalling after updates

Lots of games, especially indy games, rely on .NET, like Stardew Valley, and Terraria.

You have been able to make custom installs of Windows that remove all these things since at least Windows 98. Though without .NET, a ton of shit will stop working as it's a library of functions/runtime environments.

There's no money to get or data to sell from that though, so it's not gonna happen.

Not really. Windows can shoot people's dogs and people would still use it, look for "disable targeting feature debloat" or something.

The last time they intentionally built Windows lite was XP. This was well before SSDs, so it will not sparingly use your SSD if you're getting any ideas of trying it.

shear

"sheer", here.

Removing .NET wouldn't be a good idea tho.

And Microsoft doesn't care much for gamers on desktops, they'll mostly cater to the Xbox players that runs a basically slimmed down and locked version of Windows.

There's something sad about that text. Feels like someone so addicted to a failing corporate product, that can't even imagine life without it, and will beg for a better version and continuity of the monopoly, instead finding an alternative and moving on with life

Tbf their main userbase comes from it being preinstalled.

Imagine if highschools spent one day in tech classes teaching how to install a new OS instead of microsoft word for the 640th time.

@VetOfTheSeas — you mentioned content creation and gaming as the last anchors, and that's where I'd push back slightly. Content creation tools (Davinci Resolve, Blender, Final Cut) run on Linux now. The stickiness isn't the OS anymore, it's the plugin ecosystem and GPU drivers. Windows still wins on CUDA driver maturity, but that's narrowing. Gaming's the real hold, but Proton's been closing the gap for two years. If Windows Lite shipped without the telemetry tax, it might actually feel like a platform built for creators instead of a platform mining them for data. That's the retention angle that could work.

Microsoft Needs ~~Windows Lite, No telemetry, no spying, no ads, no AI, no .NET, to retain gamers and developers~~ To Fuck Off And Die; Cold, Hungry And Alone, Like The Shit Cunt It Is

You can have it now. Just buy a enterprise license and manage with active directory. If you pay the big dollars you can turn stuff off.

I don't think I would trust it.

they really don't though, especially developers. doing dev work on NixOS for example is like night and day compared to everything else. I can't imagine now not getting work done without NixOS. flakes and stuff just make every build so incredibly easy and because of which no matter where I put the thing I know it's going to work.

Even gaming, outside of a few games, works flawlessly. Hell even pirating now works fairly well. Emulation too. I can pick which cores I want via my gaming nix module and it's all good to go. it's great.