Windows 11 Pro - (No Bloat/Telemetry/Auto-Updates/Defender) - Pre-Activated

Hello guys,
After my previous Windows 10 debloat thread was appreciated by the gamers and power users community, I am now sharing a drop of Windows 11 Pro here (Version 21996.1) which is a dev version however it is fully functional and pretty much glitch free. I have completely removed all the bloatware, MS spyware, telemetry, auto-updates as well as Defender from it (only the Defender Firewall remains). Some of the key mods/enhancements are listed below:





Changes specific to build 22463:

• Comes with pre-installed .NET Framework 3.5 (includes .NET 2.0 and 3.0) on special demand of @Papusan and many others.
• Added back Windows Media Player due to some users demanding it (however it can be removed from "Turn Windows features on or off" dialog.
• Windows Update service download is now set to manual mode which means, windows will download updates but will ask for permission before downloading and installing them once you enable Windows Update service, however it is still recommended that you download updates only manually or via a third party tool of your choice. Or, you can do it manually, one update at a time i.e., the old school way.
  
• Dark mode is now pre-enabled.
• This build is not pre-activated as it will now use over your Windows 10 Pro license (if you have a working license on your machine for Windows 10 pro, this build will be automatically activated using the same license when you connect to the internet.)

Here are some quick screenshots for build 21996.1 (Dark mode enabled):
(Used Work Blue Smoke Icon Pack)








Here are some screenshots for build 22464 (Dark Mode enabled by default):







Changes Specific to Build 21H2 (22000.348):

The following settings have been disabled:



The following pre-installed package has also been removed (intended to boost Windows Update so it would bypass all controls)


Here is the properties page after successful first installation:



Known issues:
1: Hibernation needs to be enabled (if you want). To do it, give these commands in CMD shell with administrator privileges:
C:\Users\Whatever> powercfg /hibernate on <Press Enter>
C:\Users\Whatever> powercfg /h /type full <Press Enter>
(Reboot for the settings to take effect.)

2: MS Edge is pre-installed in this build (weirdly, some people still like it.. ). However you can get rid of that pile of junk using these commands in CMD shell with administrator privileges:

Steps for build 21996.1:
===============
C:\> cd "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft\Edge\Application\90.0.818.66\Installer\" <Press Enter>
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft\Edge\Application\90.0.818.66\Installer> setup.exe --uninstall --system-level --verbose-logging --force-uninstall <Press Enter>
===============

Steps for build 22463:
===============
C:\> cd "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft\Edge\Application\92.0.902.67\Installer\" <Press Enter>
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft\Edge\Application\92.0.902.67\Installer> setup.exe --uninstall --system-level --verbose-logging --force-uninstall <Press Enter>
===============

After that, go ahead and delete the "Microsoft" folder from Program Files (x86).

3: Original Photo Viewer has been restored however by default, double clicking on any picture will attempt to print it. You can resolve it by opening it with photo viewer and selecting "Always use this app to open .xxx files".

4: This build does not contain any media players. Not even microsoft paint! You can port any of the binaries that you want from other windows builds as they are stand alone. For media player and codec, download K-Lite Mega Codec Pack that comes pre-bundled with Media Player Classic and plays pretty much every media format on earth, or you can use VLC.

5: These builds of Windows 11 will give you a prompt after a few days of installation that says, "This build of Windows will expire soon". In order to keep using this build, all you need to do is to rename/delete the file LicensingUI.exe available in C:/Windows/System32/ directory. You can either rename/delete it by making yourself the owner of the file via security permissions and then allowing your user account to have full control on the file through Windows directly, or you can do the same by rebooting via a Linux installation disk. Either way will work. For doing it via Windows, here are the steps:
a: Right click on LicensingUI.exe and click "Properties".
b: Go to " Security" tab and click on Advanced button.
c: Click the "Change" hyperlink in front of the Owner section that is below the top Name section.
d: Under "Enter the object name to select (examples): Enter your current user profile name that you are currently logged in through (must be an administrator account).
e: Click " Check Names" button, and if you typed the correct user profile name, it should appear in the box. Then click OK.
f: Now click on " Apply" button.
g: Now you are back under " Security" tab. Click on " Edit" button. Select your newly added user profile from " Group or user names" section {should look something like Users (<computer name>\Users)}.Now under " Permissions for Users", check " Full Control" under " Allow" and hit OK.
h: Hit OK again and it's done. Now simply right click the file LicensingUI.exe and rename/delete it. You can then reboot the system for the changes to take effect. Once done, the warnings will be stopped permanently.

6: After a month of using the installation from build 22463, Windows will lock you out from Task Manager and some other system dialogues, saying something ridiculous like: "This app has been blocked for your protection".

Solution: Open registry editor ( regedit.exe) and navigate to:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System\
Find a REG_DWORD value named EnableLUA. Double click on it and set it's new value to 0. Then restart your computer and the issue should be resolved.

7: When you install Windows 11 Pro 21H2 Build 22000.348, make sure that you immediately install a good windows update control software such as Wu10Man. When installed, open it and disable all Windows Services from "Windows Services" tab except Windows Update. Make sure that you keep your "Update Orchestrator Service" disabled and stopped at all times unless you want to install an update. Now, use WindowsUpdateHideTool binary to search for available updates. If you see these 2 in the list, you better skip them as they are related to Windows Update itself and will open the gates of bloatware and Microsoft's own malware towards your machine. It's also a good idea to disable all driver updates that appear above these just to get a cleaner experience and avoiding any pesky driver update that would try to install itself (although it has been disabled but Windows seldom respects group policy and registry restrictions in this regard).


8: If you are annoyed by Windows 11 shell menu which is transparent but you have to click multiple times to simply copy/paste something via expanding the menu, you can now get the classic shell menu back where you don't have to click the menu multiple times to expand it. Simply download THIS REGISTRY SCRIPT and merge it into your Windows 11 installation and you will be back with Windows 10 style menu. It will not be transparent but it will get the job done. Here is a preview of the new classic menu in Dark mode.




Feel free to download and try it out. So far it has been working flawlessly on my main machine for the last 3 days and I am satisfied with the gaming performance.

Download Win11-NoBloat.iso file (build 21996.1):
Download link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qxsfs9AeH-rMPYg2chDBFYvnQ8pLWNDn/view?usp=sharing

Download Win11-NoBloat-22463.iso file (build 22463) (includes .NET 3.5 pre-installed):
Download link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Qb35Op00eD7XsdgaovMpb1qL-UoKEB-P/view?usp=sharing

Download Win11Pro-22K.348.NoBloat.iso (build 21H2 22000.348) (includes .NET 3.5 pre-installed):
Download link: https://mega.nz/file/ujg2RJaB#-tBiaTcd6XMQzKclQPa2bllcL9rR0QHnWTWHUeF8JnI
Archive password: FreeForAll

Basic Redistributable package (Contains ALL DirectX updates to date + all VC redistributables):
Download link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/12scg09_torNZxzzcpyzcog58TYHD0T0W/view?usp=sharing


Note: There have been no "Additions" made to this build except for the classic Windows Photo Viewer. Other than that, this build is completely stock which has been repackaged with a customized group policy settings pack and modification to services start/stop section in addition to bloatware removal. No license is needed if you use as-is, however license might be required if you apply any license related updates from Windows Updates on your own. You will have to buy a license yourself in that case however my advice is, keep using as-is and install windows updates manually only. Enjoy!



All my work is available for free. If it helps you out by improving your gaming/daily usage experience then consider making a donation.

 

First to say thanks for your work you are truly appreciated

 

Thanks. Any reason you this time forgot add in Net 3.5 ? If you use etc multi OS usb tool as Ventoy you can't install it directly from the OS package. Should always be implemented in the ISO for an easy and fast setup. See... I never use Windows update to update needed packages.

 

This is awesome! Thanks!

Now to give Windows 11 a test run and see if I like it. I gotta tell one of my buddies about this to convert him from MacOS back to Windows since he's all about the UI design.

Also, how's the gaming performance in Windows 11 vs Windows 10 LSTC? Is it worse, about the same, or better?

 

There is a weird bug in these dev builds where if you pre-package .NET Framework 3.5 or older, the start menu disappears from the taskbar and it doesn't receive any clicks either. The only way to bring it up is to use keyboard shortcuts. I am still trying to wrap my head around this and until then, I decided to drop it from the build. I will add it back once I figure this glitch out. This is a really poor bug imo and speaks volumes about poor quality control in this release. It actually might be a smart idea to hold back from upgrading for a while (unless you are a testing nut like myself).

EDIT: Fixed this in build 22463!

To be honest with you, with 128 Gigs of RAM, 10900K and RTX 2080, I really don't feel any difference in games. But your mileage may vary depending upon your machine.

 

Thanks.

See also... http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/windows-11.836230/page-65#post-11120656

Yep. I tested it once it was out on some of my test machines in Jun/July. Hate the Apple influenced UI and the kids style. This new OS is within top 3 regarding new features and UI. I mean top 3 worst

Yep, an awful direction... http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/windows-11.836230/page-41#post-11107151

 

Added build 22463.

Comes with .NET 3.5 pre-installed @Papusan

 

Build 22463 revised with a fix for taskbar system tray area where clicking on volume icon did not bring up the volume control bar window. It should be pretty much glitch free now!

 

TY!!! rocking this on my alienware m17 r4 my clevo x170 and my custom built desktop

 

Game mode has already been removed (you can no longer enable/disable it as it has been outright removed) in build 22463.

 

These builds will start giving "This build of Windows will expire soon" warning messages shortly. I have updated the original post with a fix for this pesky warning under "Known Issues". Look at the directions under issue # 5 for the fix.

 

New issue found in build 22463: After a month of using the installation, Windows will lock you out from Task Manager and some other system dialogues, saying something ridiculous like: "This app has been blocked for your protection".

Solution: Open registry editor ( regedit.exe) and navigate to:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System\
Find a REG_DWORD value named EnableLUA. Double click on it and set it's new value to 0. Then restart your computer and the issue should be resolved.

 

Released Windows 11 Pro Build 22000.348 (21H2). This is the same version that is currently available for download from Microsoft website (but without bloatware, spyware and OEM malware). Rock stable and very snappy. Check the first post in this thread for update details and download link.

I have experienced a bit of stuttering on this build when I moved to Samsung NVME drivers, so I removed them and got back to the stock OEM drivers from MS. So far working fine with no apparent major issues. Very smooth disk operation.

Also, to get the classic shell menu back where you don't have to click the menu multiple times to copy/paste something, download THIS REGISTRY SCRIPT and run it on your Windows 11 and you will be back with Windows 10 style menu. It will not be transparent but it will get the job done.

 

Thanks for the update! Happy Thanksgiving

 

You too! Btw, I updated the above post that you quoted. Don't miss out on that goodie just in case.

 

@S.K I'd suggest reverting Dism ResetBase to default which partial cleanup which will preserve W10's Reset My PC feature.
You can integrate packages .netfx35 with switches in post install section https://github.com/abbodi1406/dotNetFx35W10
This way you can do dism componentcleanup and also ISO size is reduced.

 

Saw this issue on Win 10 21H2 builds.

 

I have never used that buggy feature in my life as it has never been a useful way to restore your installation, and while it is turned on, performance also suffers needlessly. A more practical approach is to take frequent backups and restore them externally as a partition image. Which is why I don't think it would have added any additional value to the ISO, apart from being smaller in size but in 2021, 4-5 Gigs is considered small imho. Plus, I have that "backup and restore" feature removed/disabled from the OS anyway so it wouldn't matter even then.

 

Thanks for the decancerifcation ISO. I am not sure if I will download/try it since I do not like the underlying OS... super-icky looking GUI and too many compromises under the hood. I hope you and your family have a nice Thanksgiving holiday. We all have more to be thankful for that anyone deserves.

Macrium Reflect FTW! I'd never trust a "restore" utility provided by the Redmond Reprobates. Almost anything worth getting comes from a third-party developer. If it is worth getting, chances are the Reprobates will also try to buy it and then either totally ruin it or stop developing it because it's not something they want people to have.

What they really meant to say is, " This app has been blocked to protect us from you, because now we own you and your computer. Our will be done, sheeple!"

 

Indeed! However in case of this iso, you will find it very windows 10-ish with all the unwanted "updates" stripped from the iso via physical deletion of related files (and their pesky backups) and registry keys. The UI part can also be restored by making the start menu to appear on the left instead of in the middle of the taskbar. Other than that, very minor UI changes.

I personally LOVE clonezilla. It is a stand alone linux kernel that is built only for backing up and restoring disks and partitions. What's neat is that you can put it on a bootable usb stick like a regular ISO and backup/restore anything and everything as a partition or disk image! The particularly unique feature that I like about it is that it can force a different sized partition image on a bigger or smaller partition without complaining and if the data part of the image is not bigger than the target partition size, it will work perfectly fine even though the actual image was bigger than that.

Those little rats just have some timer based events running in the back where they just toggle registry keys to lock people out of the build whenever a specific time has lapsed since the installation was done. However they didn't do it good enough.

 

This software called Wu10Man really goes well with Windows 10 and Windows 11. I 100% recommend that everyone installing these should get their hands on this tool. It saved my computer numerous times and the nifty little feature where it can disable system scheduled tasks is pretty neat.

 

Thanks. I had not seen this before. Nifty tool. When it comes to Micro$lop's Automatic Updates, I like throwing the baby out with the bath water. Have you identified any reason to consider going with the MSI version versus portable? I lean heavily in favor of portable whenever functionality is equivalent, especially when it is a run once (or run infrequently) utility.

 

It works the exact same way. I myself use the portable version. The only thing different in the MSI version is that it relies on some system DLLs instead of packing everything up within the same directory. But functionally there is no difference.

 

I find that to generally be true of all portable apps. While there are some exceptions now and then, portable apps are generally identically to those that are installed.

I have found that it is often possible to drag the folder of an installed program to another location and use it as a portable app even when doing so was never intended. I have also had some success with exporting registry keys as .reg files and merging them versus installing when I want a portable version of something that doesn't launch properly when treated as a portable app.

 

Fair enough I didn't have good experience with Reset this pc feature but I had few people complaining Reset this Pc was broken after few oths in my custom OS.

 

The 22000.348 build you uploaded doesn't have an updated hyper link, and when it is pasted, it's a ToS takedown from Google Drive, thought I'd give a heads up.

 

It seems Google nuked the build for "violation of terms and services". No surprise there. I will upload at some other file hosting platform and share the updated links in the main thread. Thanks for the heads up.

EDIT: The URL has been updated.
https://mega.nz/file/v6JxRKRR#-rjmD9GnNejm1p2aPZM-sFKuqEKLqTLDTxoTSpBpYK4

 

Howdy @S.K Made an account just to say thanks! and ask some questions to boot:

1. Do you have any updated debloated iso's ?
2. Any idea if these tweaks risk getting overwritten in some random windows update, and suddenly bloat the install?

Im building my dad a new computer and i figured he might as well get the W11. He lives abroad so i cant visit very often, and he needs about 20minutes to open/find "My Computer".. so my main aim is to have something stable and functioning with minimal amount of hassle- would you recommend a debloated W11, or perhaps a W10 LTSC?

And out of curiosity: what is that gorgeous checklist in the first post where you can select disable/enable/default elements?

Cheers from Norway!

 

This link got taken down as well, just a heads up. Seems whoever is striking it isn't a big fan. >.>

 

Google does that all of the time. I give ISO files an obscure file name and put them in a 7zip file with an unrecognizable file extension to avoid that. If you do not, even files that are not shared will get flagged by those filthy Nazi bastards.

 

Hello! In my opinion, download the Windows 10 pro build 2004 from my windows 10 thread, install it and then run windows update hide tool to hide all (ALL!) updates except for windows defender (if that's your chosen AV setup. If not, you can hide that as well). The build is complete without any updates and all MS is doing with those so called updates is crammig in more unnecessary edge centric crapware. I have refined that build a little more and will post a new link tonight but the old one works fine as well. Once you are done with installation, make sure that Windows Updates, Update Orchestrator Service and Windows Auto Update Medic Service are all DISABLED from setvices. Once disabled, install the above Wu10Man tool on the machine to make sure all update channels are disabled / closed. Also tell your dad to periodically check the tool to see if any switch has turned green so that he can quickly flip and disable it.

 

Thank you for bringing that to my attention. I'll light their tail on fire again tonight when I upload a further refined version 2 of the same build.

 

Link updated. This time it is a password protected archive. Password is available in the main post of this thread.

 

Password protect will help to an certain extent. Did face it couple of times on gdrive, onedrive and mega nz.

 

Thank you so much for your doing soo much for this community!

Link for

build 21H2 22000.348

is down. Would you reupload it plz? Thank you.

Also on build 22463 I can't seem to access the windows store. I was able to access the windows store in the Win 10 gutted edition, would you happen to know a fix for this issue?

 

Sorry folks. Been REALLY busy! I will repair the link once again in a couple of days. Apologies for the delay.