Debloat Windows 11

YOU’LL NEED THIS WINDOWS 11 An up to date installation. (Optional) 8GB USB stick for clean install

THERE’S NOTHING QUITE as annoying as booting up your brand new Windows 11 PC for the first time, only to find that it’s crawling to a snail’s pace due to the presence of bloatware. Common culprits include ‘registration’ programs from your machine manufacturer, as well as trial versions of antivirus and backup programs.

Your OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) may want you to use their proprietary apps or ones that they’ve been paid to preinstall, but this isn’t necessarily best for your machine. Bloatware consumes system resources, and can even pose a security risk due to undisclosed bugs.

In this guide, you’ll learn how to go through your Windows 11 device and list apps, distinguish the unnecessary ones, then remove them. You’ll also discover how to reset your device to factory settings, if necessary. Windows has safeguards to prevent you from deleting anything crucial but, we recommend making a full system backup before proceeding.– NATE DRAKE

1

REMOVE BLOATWARE BY SETTINGS

The internet is full of apps that offer to automatically remove ‘ junk files’ from your PC, but when it comes to removing bloatware, installing extra software can be counterproductive. It can also lead to security issues (as evidenced by the 2018 supply chain attack on CCleaner).

» Luckily, it’s simple to remove installed applications using Windows’ own built-in tools. To get started, open Settings, then choose ‘Apps’ in the left-hand pane. Select ‘Installed Apps’ to view a list of all applications.

» By default, this is a long A-Z list of all programs on all drives. Use ‘Filter By’ to list only applications for individual disks. Select the ‘Sort By’ menu to change from A-Z to something more helpful, eg. ‘Date Installed’. [ Image A]

» To remove an app, simply click the … icon next to its name, and select ‘Uninstall’. You’ll see an alert informing you that the program and all related info will be removed. Hit ‘Uninstall’ to continue. If this is a third-party app, then the install wizard of the program in question will launch to continue the removal process. [ Image B]

» You can’t uninstall vital system apps, so it’s usually safe to remove any apps here. Unlike malware, bloatware isn’t designed to damage your, system so can encompass legitimate apps like Microsoft News or Nero BackItUp.

» If Windows comes bundled with your device, it’s likely that your equipment manufacturer bundled a large amount of unnecessary apps. Some of these, like TOSHIBARegistration, are easy to detect.

» If you’re uncertain about which programs to remove, open www.shouldiremoveit.com on a separate device. This site contains details of almost 85 million apps, as well as rankings for manufacturer bloatware (currently, Toshiba is in first place).

» You can also remove apps via the Start menu. Simply launch the menu, select ‘All Apps’, then Scroll down to your chosen program. Right-click to ‘Uninstall’ via the pop-up menu.

2

REMOVING STUBBORN BLOATWARE

Once you’ve gone through the Uninstall process, you may see that your chosen app is still listed in the ‘Apps’ menu.

» If a program persists, try manual removal via Powershell. Search for the utility via the Windows search bar, then right-click to ‘Run as Administrator’.

Next, enter:

Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers | Select Name, PackageFullName

» This will display a list of all currently installed Windows and third-party apps. Scroll down to find your chosen app in the list. [ Image C]

» You can use this to remove a program via Powershell. For instance, to rid your PC of ‘Microsoft.BingNews’ enter: Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers Microsoft.BingNews | RemoveAppxPackage

» If you want to remove multiple apps, PowerShell offers a faster way to select and remove more than one program.

» Return to the command prompt and enter: Get-AppxPackage | Out-GridView -PassThru | RemoveAppxPackage

» This performs the same function as the first command in that it lists installed apps, but uses ‘Out-GridView’ to pipe the output to a new window with a table of installed apps. [ Image D]

» Here, you can use Ctrl + Click to select as many apps as you want, then choose ‘OK’ to proceed with removal. Some vital Windows apps are installed here, but in our tests, PowerShell threw up an error when we tried to remove anything vital.

» Even if your apps are removed, it may not remove all temporary files. These are in the ‘Temp’ file of your local user folder, eg. C:\Users\nate\ AppData\Local\Temp. [ Image E]

» From here, you can simply delete any files or folders relating to the bloatware you’ve just removed.

» If after rebooting bloatware is still listed in your installed apps, fire up the Registry Editor and navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_ MACHINE\ Software\ Microsoft\Windows\ CurrentVersion\ Uninstall. [ Image F]

» From here, you can right-click the key for individual programs and choose ‘Delete’.

3

DOING A CLEAN INSTALL

If you don’t enjoy tinkering with Windows settings, PowerShell, and the registry, you can remove all thirdparty bloatware in one go by doing a ‘clean’ install of Windows.

» You can use Windows settings to ‘reset’ your PC so it retains your own data and files, without third-party apps.

» To start, open Windows Settings. Select ‘System’ from the left-hand pane, then scroll down to ‘Recovery’. Select this, then hit the button marked ‘Reset PC’.

» In the new window, choose ‘Keep my files’ to keep your personal documents. Select a ‘Local’ or ‘Cloud’ reinstall as you see fit, then hit ‘Next’.

» By default, this will remove all non-Windows apps and programs. Click ‘View apps to be removed’ to see a full list. [ Image G]

» Click ‘Reset’ to continue. Your device will restart during the reset process.

» Once this is complete, if you’ve previously removed any Windows apps you don’t need, such as Microsoft Edge, you may need to do so again via Settings by repeating the steps earlier in this guide.

» If you find that system performance hasn’t improved significantly despite removing bloatware, you may need to do a clean install of Windows 11.

» This involves creating a USB install media, but this will erase everything on your device, including your personal files.

» If you’re using an older PC, instead of stock Windows 11, consider installing Tiny11 instead ( https://archive. org/details/tiny11-2311). The ISO is around 20 percent smaller than a regular Windows 11 one. Tiny11 is also based on Windows 11 2023 Update (23H2), but is much more lightweight, as most unnecessary software has been removed, including support for XBox and the nowdefunct Cortana (CoPilot support is available).

» As speedy as Tiny11 is, as unofficial Windows software it could be prone to bugs and update issues. If you’re unsure, use an official Windows 11 ISO, available from www.microsoft.com/en-ca/softwaredownload/windows11.