Windows 11
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There are a ton of people using EOL (end of life) Windows versions, which is kinda scary. Not few of them do so because Microsoft has made updating something negatively associated, which is also incredible.
Updating software is essential, please do so. If you don't want to and don't need Windows-only software, there are a bunch of penguin people that happily guide your way through Linux.
I recently installed Win11 for a friend who needs Adobe software, and I think I have achieved a near perfect result, with minimal hassle.
This guide will show you how to do a clean install of nearly unchanged Windows 11, and adapt it with a few free and open source tools, to be less invasive and resource intense.
Prerequisites
- Windows 10 machine
- 2-3 pendrives / USB-sticks with 4 and 9GB storage
- external backup drive (e.g. a SATA SSD in a USB case like this one)
- internet connection
If you have a lot of drives, remove all of them apart from the one where Windows is installed.
1. Backup
No backup no mercy, now is the time to do it.
To do this, you best use an external drive that you can remove from the computer. So I recommend a big enough SATA SSD in a case, they are extremely reliable and cheap. I use a Crucial SSD, but also others which never failed on me.
Do not use any encryption tools made by Microsoft (i.e. Bitlocker), as you likely cannot get data back without Windows, and maybe even on another machine. Instead, we will use a different tool.
1.1 Filesystem
Windows is a very limited OS, and it only supports a handful of useful filesystems.
Normally Windows would format external drives with NTFS, which can be read on Linux, but not on macOS.
For a full backup, exFat would be okay, as it supports files bigger than 4GB (unlike Fat32, the default USB stick format). But I don't know how to format a drive with that filesystem and don't bother.
UDF is better suited for this job though. Like exFat it works on Linux, MacOS and Windows and it is mainly used in DVDs. UDF is more resistant to data corruption and fragmentation (relevant on spinning hard drives). Windows supports it, but does not easily allow creating it, so you need a Linux live USB too create a medium.
Formatting the external drive will remove all data, so make sure to copy it over to the current system first.
Optional Steps
1.1.1 Live Linux environment
If you choose to use the more advanced UDF filesystem, it is easiest to create it using a Linux "Live USB stick". As we need this tool later anyways, we install Rufus, to write .iso files to USB sticks.
Now we need a good Linux variant (distribution, desktop) to do this, I find Fedora with the KDE Plasma desktop to be the easiest and most powerful. Fedora recommends to use their "Fedora Media Writer" and it works well, but Rufus is also fine and needed for Windows.
1.1.2 Download
Download Fedora with the KDE Plasma desktop here. On a standard PC, you need the x86_64 or amd64 variant, so here we choose Fedora-KDE-Live....
Note that 41 is the current version (March 2025) and Fedora releases a new version every 6 months. So you should use the updated URL following this scheme
https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/fedora/linux/releases/NUMBER/Spins/x86_64/iso/
# for example
https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/fedora/linux/releases/42/Spins/x86_64/iso/
Steps
- Download the .iso file
- Plug in a min 4GB USB pendrive / stick
- Install and open Rufus
- Select the Fedora .iso file to write
- Write the ISO
1.1.3 Turn off the PC
Once finished, turn off the PC. Windows does not really turn off all the time, which is the cause of battery drain on laptops and will prevent the following steps. If you cannot physically remove the battery or remove all power, open Powershell as administrator and run this command
%SYSTEMROOT%\system32\shutdown.exe -s -f -t 0
You can also open the text editor, enter this command, and save it as shutdown.bat on your desktop. Then you can to a real shutdown by clicking on the file.
1.1.4 Boot into Linux
Turn on the PC, now you need to know the key to press to show the boot menu. Try F1 to F10, if Windows boots, shut it down using the power button. Repeat until you see "Fedora Linux" as boot option, select it using the arrow keys and Enter.
Some laptops (like the Acer Swift 3 I used) seem to not have a boot menu, so you need to enter the BIOS settings, go to boot options and set the flashdrive as first option.
Now Linux is starting. As this is an installer system, you don't need a password and will be presented with a KDE Plasma desktop!
1.1.5 Format the backup SSD
Plug in your external backup SSD and open the app "KDE Partitionmanager".
Select the correct drive (should be detectable through the size).
Use the button "New Partition Table" and select GPT.
Now create 1 or 2 partitions. If you want to use Linux later, you can create a backup partition for Linux here.
For the Windows backup partition:
- Right click, New partition
- Filesystem UDF
- Name: Backup-Windows
- Size: how much you want, default is max, you can use half if you want to also store Linux backups here
For the Linux backup partition (if you want)
- Make sure to have space left (step before)
- Create a new partition
- Filesystem EXT4, BTRFS or XFS. BTRFS is good if you use a spinning hard drive, otherwise use EXT4
- Encrypt the drive, use LUKS2, set a password. Make sure to use a password that you can type in QWERTY layout, as it might be used in some steps in the boot process by default.
- Size max
Then use the "Apply" button in the top left to change the disk. If you don't do this, no changes will be done.
Example:
Now you can turn off the Linux system again, remove the pendrive and boot into Windows again.
1.2 Encrypted Backup location
As we want to avoid storing our data without encryption, but also want to prevent Microsoft from locking us out from our own data, we do not use Filesystem encryption and instead use free tools that work on Linux, Windows and macOS.
We can use Veracrypt or Cryptomator. Veracrypt is old and reliable, Cryptomator also works well and is optimized for cloud storages, as it encrypts files as small snippets.
Both tools have passed security checks (audits) and can be used, but Cryptomator is a bit easier to use and might perform faster for updates, due to how it encrypts files.
- Download and install Cryptomator from the website
- Plug in the backup drive
- Open Cryptomator
- Create a new vault
- Select a place in your backup drive
- Set a password
- Unlock the vault and open it.
Now backup all your things in here:
1.3 Backup
Make sure to copy Downloads, Images, Documents etc.
If you dont want to lose appdata, you can use this known trick to view it. Press Windows-Key+R and type %appdata%. The filemanager will show the folder where many apps save their configurations, Firefox profiles and more. Copy what you want to the backup drive. Do not compress it if you want to regularly back it up.
2. Download Windows ISO and Software
Download the Windows 11 ISO from this website. Do not install the "Media creation tool", as Rufus has additional features.
Meanwhile, download a bunch of software for later use
- DoNotSpy11 to set a bunch of settings that change the spying behavior of Windows.
- Bulk Crap Uninstaller which allows you to remove a lot of preinstalled software
- Firefox instead of MS Edge
- Thunderbird instead of the crippled "New Outlook"
- VLC Media Player instead of the Windows Movie Player
- IrfanView instead of the Windows Photos app
Check on "Alternative To" for alternative software you might need.
Optionally you can also use tools like Portmaster but this will create a more complex system to manage, if you want profound privacy improvements.
Do not pretend that Windows is a secure system where you can safely store personal files and do private browsing. Use this system as an appliance and no more.
Save the software to a pendrive. You can use the one with linux on it, but you need to reformat it with Windows (it will tell you nonsense like "there is a problem with that flashdrive" anyways, so this is pretty easy)
3. Create a Windows install media
- Plug in the 8GB Pendrive
- Open Rufus
- Open the downloaded Windows 11 ISO
- Select the correct pendrive as target
- Rufus chooses default settings, they are fine
- It shows a dialog window where you can enable changes. Select the ones you want. If you have supported hardware, do not disable that, for example.
- local account
- no onedrive
- no forced bitlocker encryption
- bypass hardware requirements (minimum RAM and TPM 2.0)
- continue, wait until finished
4. Install Windows
Remove the backup drive, reboot the computer. See under hidden chapter 1.1.3 and 1.1.4 how to deal with issues booting into the Windows USB stick.
Follow the (damn ugly) installer. Remove all partitions on your PC that were previously used by Windows. Continue
When the install is almost done, the new fancy steps will be shown, where you should connect to Wifi. The option "I don't have internet" should be shown, use that to avoid tracking and forced online accounts.
5. Setup Windows
Once installed, you will have a Windows 11 desktop. It is likely Windows 11 Home, which has a bunch of bloatware preinstalled, but way less than at the beginning of Windows 11 or even Windows 10.
5.1 Debloating, Optimizations
Do not connect to the Internet yet, install BCUninstaller and DoNotSpy11. In BCU, enable "uninstall using checkboxes" and the configs to remove protected packages. It does not work often anyways. In DoNotSpy11 you can disable Windows Recall and more "AI" crap, but be aware that is also allows you to turn off random security features. Only disable what you understand.
Install the other software you want now.
5.2 WinUtil
Then connect to the internet, and use ChrisTitus' Windows Utility to set a bunch more things.
Open Powershell as Administrator, and enter
irm "https://christitus.com/win" | iex
in here you can do a lot of things, mainly
- remove Edge
- set updates to "security updates only" (you may or may not want that). DO NOT DISABLE UPDATES, this is stupid.
- disable telemitry, Cortana, web search, ads and more
5.3 GUI changes
The huge search bar always annoys me as it has no purpose that the windows button does not serve. You can disable it in the panel settings (right click on the panel).
Uninstalling Software automatically fixes a bunch of things. Cortana, Ads, "Recommended Apps", News and the Edge Browser will be gone.
You may still want to change some minor things, like disabling transparency and animations to reduce hardware load.
6. Restore Backup
You should have Cryptomator installed, so now you can connect the backup drive, unlock it with your password and copy over all your files! Windows is pretty slow at handling many small files, the filemanager might hang when moving too many, simply wait until it is done.
7. Reboot
The account does not have a password yet! So you need to reboot, then you can set a user password.
8. Dual-Boot with Linux
Dual-booting on the same drive is kinda hacky and can result in breakages of the Windows or Linux system when done wrong. It is recommended to use separate drives when possible, but using the same drive IS possible.
Dual-Boot Instructions
8.1 shrink Windows partition
In Windows, search for "Partition" and open the partition manager. Here you see a big NTFS partition, which you can resize. Select the smaller new size you want, which will free space after the partition, where you can then install Linux.
8.2 Install Linux
You can choose what Linux variant you want. Depending on how often you want to use the system, you want one with more or less frequent updates.
If you only boot the system once a month or so, something like Debian or AlmaLinux would be good. If you use it regularly, something like Fedora, OpenSUSE Tumbleweed or Slowroll can be nice.
Keep in mind that not all systems work well with dualbooting. I generally recommend Fedora Atomic Desktops and derivatives like "universal blue's" Bluefin, Aurora and Bazzite.
These systems are waay more reliable and easy to update, especially when using them only once a year or so. "Recommended Distros" like Linux Mint, Ubuntu or Fedora can get really messy as the traditional package managers have extremely many breaking points, resulting in failing updates or upgrades and you needing to learn a lot of technical things.
There are ongoing issues on dualbooting for these systems and setting them up is generally worth a try.
In short, it should work if you create a second /boot/efi partition, and select the system to boot in your BIOS, instead of using the Linux GRUB bootloader to also boot Windows, like it is done in many dual-boot setups.
Result
In the end you should have a minimal Windows system with removed and replaced software. It will consume less RAM and do less without you asking it to. It will likely not train AI models with your data, upload your data into the cloud, or force you into subscription software.
The system will be a bit more privacy friendly, but it still relies on Microsoft not reverting everything. Windows is a proprietary operating system, meaning even technical people cannot easily know what happens in there. You should never trust it with personal data and instead use a separate Linux system for that.
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I have enabled the mod "Bring Back the Borders!", which is said to remove rounded corners and add borders in Win11, and added dwm.exe to the include list as directed:
However, I'm still seeing rounded corners:
What steps should I take to fix this?
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