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Reclaim Windows10

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Re: Reclaim Windows10

#81

Post by blibble »

mattowen_uk wrote: post #77
thrower123 wrote: post #49

If you have access to it, through partner or MSDN or corporate licensing or otherwise, it is really worth installing the Windows 10 Enterprise LTSB/LTSC versions. It has most of the annoying things that plague consumer versions of Windows 10 stripped out, and it gets a very different cadence of updates, restricted to security and quality fixes. No Cortana, no Edge installed by default, no built-in Store universal app…

To be honest, Windows 10 Pro is 'good enough'. It's the 'Home' variant that is stuffed full of the third party games and apps.

pro comes with the same mountain of bullshit as home, including Candy Crush, solitaire with subscription (and/or ads) and xbox gaming

Re: Reclaim Windows10

#82

Post by hparadiz »

anaisbetts wrote: post #5

Nearly all of these "clean up" scripts are a horrendous idea to run on your machine, I see right at the top that this script disables SmartScreen, a service that absolutely should not be disabled unless you want your machine to get owned. It then proceeds to set your current network as Private (aka "open all the ports") regardless of which network you're connected to - hope you're at home! Other changes are completel…

I've been using these scripts on my boxes for years now with no issues. Maybe don't make assumptions about people's use cases?

Re: Reclaim Windows10

#83

Post by e3bc54b2 »

shawnz wrote: post #72
e3bc54b2 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, the "Smart" screen says that WinMerge and KDiff3 are malwares. Naturally I trust both of them more than so called SmartScreen because unlike Smartscreen, I can inspect their code. Yes, the binaries can contain malware, but the first principles tell me that trustability score is inverse of what is being reported by MS. Naturally I have disabled Smartscreen and Windows defender and admin rights alerts and bajilio…

Smartscreen does not tell you that WinMerge is malware. It correctly tells you that the freshly compiled build from GitHub is not a commonly used software which makes it more likely to be dangerous. How is that a bad feature to have?

How is that a good feature? Just because something is not commonly used it stops being good? When most software was proprietary and FLOSS was nascent, MS argued that FLOSS was bad, was that right?

Conversely, just because something is used more, does that get the automatic stamp of approval? More than 2 Billion people use Facebook every month, do you consider FB to be more likely to be good for someone? What kind of messed up logic is that?

Re: Reclaim Windows10

#84

Post by Daho0n »

AlexandrB wrote: post #17
arkitaip wrote: post #6

One alternative is O&O ShutUp10 (free) that does the same things using a GUI: https://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10

This is a great tool, but remember to re-run it periodically (especially after updates) as Windows 10 will "helpfully" re-enable stuff you have disabled.

Yes, it should have an option of monitoring if changes have been made (not just show changes at launch). Maybe as a paid option.

Re: Reclaim Windows10

#85

Post by e3bc54b2 »

lghh wrote: post #79
e3bc54b2 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got Winmerge binary directly from GitHub repo. As trusted as it gets, short of compiling myself.

> Naturally I trust both of them more than so called SmartScreen because unlike Smartscreen, I can inspect their code. > I got Winmerge binary directly from GitHub repo. As trusted as it gets, short of compiling myself. So, you don't actually know what code you're running and that binary actually could be malware.

Yes, and original comment addresses that. In theory WinMerge binary can contain malware. But WinMerge authors have a proven track record against that and they are transparent about working of their application enough through their source. MS and Smartscreen do not have that track record, and IMO have an opposite kind of record with all kind of map/adware practices throughout the system and applications.

So if an untrusted source tells me that a usually varifuably trustable source is not to be trusted, whom do I trust more?

Re: Reclaim Windows10

#86

Post by bserge »

mattowen_uk wrote: post #75
timvisee wrote: post #21

It is insane to me that a 2432 line script is required to achieve this.

At least 70% of what's in the script can also be done via the UI, and I'd say another 10% is stuff you really shouldn't do anyway (disabling SmartScreen etc.)... The telemetry bit is about 20 or lines, if that.

SmartScreen is not Windows Defender, the latter is the antivirus with its own regularly updated database, firewall, etc.

SmartScreen basically sends your files to Microsoft, for "enhanced security" or something.

FWIW I put Defender on notification only mode because Microsoft ever so helpfully removed the actual quarantine directory and now files dumped into quarantine are basically unrecoverable.

I just use the firewall with a third party interactive GUI and block anything that I can't identify.

Re: Reclaim Windows10

#87

Post by pixelbath »

muu-g wrote: post #31

I think this is on topic but would something like https://ameliorated.info/index.html be a better idea to get rid of any bloatware and help address any privacy issues? I haven't personally used it but a friend of recommended it to me. Anyone else have any experience with AME Windows?

I do; I installed on both my personal laptop (2012-ish Alienware 17) and my wife's laptop (2020 Asus Vivobook).

The first thing to note is that Windows Update is completely removed, so unless you have fairly-current Windows 10 drivers, you'll never automatically download drivers. Asus doesn't provide an up-to-date ACPI driver, so my wife's laptop was always running at full throttle (which means constant fans) and couldn't sleep or hibernate, and several devices went unrecognized the entire time. Ultimately, I ended up reinstalling the retail version of Windows 10 that was included with the machine and after a few updates it's back to its initial state. Of note, I also tried Windows 8.1 (no drivers available) and Windows 10 LTSB (no ACPI drivers again).

For myself, I've had absolutely no issues with it. All my devices were recognized and it boots extremely quickly (~8 seconds from cold boot on a SATA SSD). Most of the stuff I didn't like about Windows 10 is ripped out. If you're a fairly technical user who's cautious about what they download and run, it might be ideal. I have no problem wiping my machine occasionally, so running without security updates isn't something I'm too bothered about.

Re: Reclaim Windows10

#88

Post by chaosite »

anaisbetts wrote: post #5

Nearly all of these "clean up" scripts are a horrendous idea to run on your machine, I see right at the top that this script disables SmartScreen, a service that absolutely should not be disabled unless you want your machine to get owned. It then proceeds to set your current network as Private (aka "open all the ports") regardless of which network you're connected to - hope you're at home! Other changes are completel…

I mean, sure, SmartScreen is an important security service that should not be disabled if you're OK with hashes of every executable you run being transmitted to Microsoft.

Re: Reclaim Windows10

#89

Post by sumtechguy »

Arainach wrote: post #60
tux3 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly, this is an expected consequence of the aggressive monetization, telemetry, and other tracking that ships with the OS. When you make it hard to trust the system, people will look at any component that seems unnecessary. They might not know what it is, but they don't trust it anymore. So it might as well get disabled. You know, to be safe. But at the end of the day I suppose it's only a small percent of users, i…

This class of user has always been doing such silly things long before "monetization". There were plenty of guides for Windows XP and Vista claiming to "increase performance" by disabling things like the indexer (fun fact, that will TANK your performance in a variety of areas), the Cryptographic services, and more. They never had any trust to violate, only a strange (and completely incorrect) sense that they knew mor…

In Vista RTM and sp1 turning off indexer was a great solution. It was monster on the drive and memory (5-10 min startups on computers that should be up in 30-60 seconds and were after you turned things like that off). They fixed it in sp2. Superfetch was just as bad as well as the windows defender. Most of that was fixed in win7. I now let all 3 of those services run. The issues were fixed...

The problem is these 'solutions' never go away. They are never revisited. So people just keep applying them because 15 years ago they had an issue with them.

Re: Reclaim Windows10

#90

Post by shawnz »

e3bc54b2 wrote: post #83
shawnz wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Smartscreen does not tell you that WinMerge is malware. It correctly tells you that the freshly compiled build from GitHub is not a commonly used software which makes it more likely to be dangerous. How is that a bad feature to have?

How is that a good feature? Just because something is not commonly used it stops being good? When most software was proprietary and FLOSS was nascent, MS argued that FLOSS was bad, was that right? Conversely, just because something is used more, does that get the automatic stamp of approval? More than 2 Billion people use Facebook every month, do you consider FB to be more likely to be good for someone? What kind of…

No. Smartscreen is not meant to single-handedly solve the entire problem of malware. It is just meant to warn you when you are running software that isn't commonly used. It is nothing more than an attempt to provide the user with a useful heuristic. It does not make moral judgements about the software you use like you are saying here.
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