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“Reclaim Windows 10” Powershell Script

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Re: “Reclaim Windows 10” Powershell Script

#111
post #87
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A good general one to rip out the bloatware is: Get-AppxPackage ** | Remove-AppxPackage Safe but sometimes you have to execute it restart and execute it again for seemingly no reason but it works and won't damage anything. Run powershell as admin. EDIT: A cursory glance of the script doesn't show anything dangerous. It may do thinks you don't want though but PowerShell's pretty decent to understand what's going on ev…

It doesn't have to be malicious to be dangerous, it can just be wrong. Nobody's running a test suite on these things whenever a Windows update comes down, nobody's testing them on a wide array of Windows configurations, and from the ones I've seen before, they can cause problems with your PC.

There are other applications which do something similar to the one linked here. Destroy Windows 10 Spying, to name an example. This is a GUI app. Does the same apply? Are the default options not sane? Did you read and understand every line of all software you run?

Re: “Reclaim Windows 10” Powershell Script

#112
post #105
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then get Debian or Fedora. I'm serious, if the OS is doing things so bad you're willing to execute untrusted code with elevated privileges to modify the OS, you've already lost.

> willing to execute untrusted code with elevated privileges to modify the OS Everything in that script is straightforward and if not easily googled to determine what its doing. It's not black magic.

Its just FUD

Re: “Reclaim Windows 10” Powershell Script

#113
post #47

Rather than continuing to struggle against these features which will continue to be added, why not use an operating system that respects your freedom?

I'd rather struggle with some Windows warts than reverse engineer my drivers. I'm not the kind of guy who would found a Free Software Foundation because of some Xerox printer drivers.

> I'd rather struggle with some Windows warts than reverse engineer my drivers.

I'd guess that any *nix user who reverse engineer their own drivers in 2017 does so because they want to and/or have a job that pays them to do so (most likely handsomely).

For the rest of us at least mainstream Linux distros are almost as easy as Windows if not easier in some cases (until you come to MS Office, AutoCAD etc which is a whole different story, mostly unrelated to drivers IMO.)

Re: “Reclaim Windows 10” Powershell Script

#115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unremoveable software that is using my computer in ways I don't want it used? Yeah, I'd call it the same thing.

"Unremoveable" by all definitions but the dictionary one.

Really? So tell me how to remove all of their software, and make sure that it doesn't come back to my system. I'm not even being sarcastic when I say I'd love to see proof that it can be done.

Re: “Reclaim Windows 10” Powershell Script

#116
post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll be the devil's advocate this time. As you can see in gpedit, Cortana and Web Search is disabled. Why does explorer.exe need to access akamai or search.msn? http://imgur.com/a/yiIxn

Some of those GPO policies no longer work, they're legacy. Instead: Click Search, Hamburger Menu, Settings, Uncheck "Search Online and Include Web Results." If you have OneDrive installed Explorer keeps a constant connection to Microsoft's servers to populate your OneDrive folders into the navigation pane.

OneDrive is also disabled, and your claim about GPO policies is blatantly nonsense, since that's what you use for Enterprise deployments.

Also, if you had actually researched before publishing, you'd known that Microsoft removed the disable option from the Hamburger menu during the Anniversary Update.

This is not a conspiracy theory but Microsoft blatantly crossing the line, I personally don't care since I'm not interested in joining the arms race against Telemetry, but not being able to easily disable an annoying persistent connection certainly leaves you a bad taste in your mouth.

Re: “Reclaim Windows 10” Powershell Script

#117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which one? An essentially unsupported Linux distribution? Canonical does telemetry as well. Apple has been doing this for years an yet we still don't sweat wrathful spate of headlines over it. Oh and by the way, the logfiles from most package servers provide an accurate description of what you're doing with your machine and a weak concept of identity. So you'll need to avoid those. Browsers keep updating and the vast…

Why is Canonical the only option here? There's plenty of other Linux choices that don't use telemetry. Also, if you use a browser that respects your privacy, and treats you like an adult, then you can turn that telemetry off.

If only they bothered to support modern laptops as well as Ubuntu does.

Re: “Reclaim Windows 10” Powershell Script

#118
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then get Debian or Fedora. I'm serious, if the OS is doing things so bad you're willing to execute untrusted code with elevated privileges to modify the OS, you've already lost.

This machine is dual boots Win 7 and Linux Mint. Work is an older MBP and another LM desktop. There's one laptop with Win10 that's kept around mainly to keep up with the tech and it would be really nice to turn off all that extra MS bullshit. But I have to question your attitude, especially here on a forum called "Hacker News"; why do you advocate against exercising ownership over one's rightful property? Microsoft a…

It's called Hacker News, not Script Kiddie News, and the difference between understanding what you're doing (or at least, doing something with the intent of learning something from it) and running someone else's code without understanding what it does is pretty much the demarcation point between being a hacker and being a script kiddie.

Re: “Reclaim Windows 10” Powershell Script

#119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We must be doing very different things. Outside of gaming, everything I do is as fast or faster to get done on Linux.

The problem isn't execution speed, it is the time you have to spend getting thinks to work properly. Linux doesn't necessarily work straight out of the box, and you may have to spend hours getting it to work properly with your hardware setup.

Ubuntu has worked more or less out of the box since its first release.

Windows routinely would take hours to install, -and that would be a "pre-installed" image from the vendor.

Lately things have gotten a lot better but I have never chosen Linux because of freedom but rather always because of simplicity and usability .

Then again, usability is in they eye of the beholder it seems.

Re: “Reclaim Windows 10” Powershell Script

#120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Unremoveable" by all definitions but the dictionary one.

Really? So tell me how to remove all of their software, and make sure that it doesn't come back to my system. I'm not even being sarcastic when I say I'd love to see proof that it can be done.

You can't provide that guarantee for any software that can update itself, Ubuntu could turn it back on tomorrow. This link shows you how to remove it now, I'm sure people give up on updating guides like this in the future.

Currently it is possibly and easy to remove telemetry. And it only takes a few clicks to disable auto-update for Windows 10 by setting your wifi to metered, and a Google search to set your ethernet to metered.

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