How many of you have old laptops or desktops sitting around collecting dust in a closet? How much did you shell out for a shiny new device to replace that aging dinosaur? What if I told you that we could bring those fossils back to life? Or would you prefer to shell-out another couple grand for the latest space-age slab that Alex from marketing was flexing at your morning stand-up? Now don’t get me wrong, I can appreciate the short-term high of unboxing that new device as much as the next guy, but it has -long-term- effects on your wallet.

I recently did a deep dive into a growing trend amongst Windows users, referred to as “debloating.” Debloating is the act of removing unessential apps and processes from your Windows 10/11 OS, freeing up resources to improve performance and usability. We’ll cover the details shortly, but I want to add clarity on who actually benefits from the practice of debloating.

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Who is this for?

In a general sense, all users can benefit from a debloated OS. Users debloating older or less powerful hardware will see the most noticeable gains, as Windows has only increased in it’s performance draw since the shift from 10 to 11. However, the process can be customized to not only increase performance, but disable and remove telemetry, ads, and wide host of privacy-compromising features. In that sense, even those using the latest and greatest can find value. I recently decided to test this process myself during an annual reset (I reset my laptops/desktop yearly with a full OS reinstall - a personal preference, maybe we’ll cover that another day). My windows laptop is quite powerful (13th-gen i7, 32gb DDR5 ram, RTX 4060), but recently the battery life has been less than desirable for working on-the-go. Even when utilizing performance modes and the MUX switch (disables discrete GPU in favor of integrated graphics) I still found significantly worse battery life compared to users running the same spec. I tried everything - battery re-calibration, custom power settings, etc. - to no avail. Debloating was something I was loosely considering, but to decrease overall power draw, I was willing to try just about anything. I’ll share my results later, but I was so satisfied I applied the same process to my desktop gaming rig as well.

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The process.

To start, I created a bootable Windows 11 USB, a traditional method to install/reinstall an operating system. In the process of creating this USB, I used rufus - a utility that helps format and create bootable USB flash drives. Rufus is a well-known and user-friendly USB formatting solution, but in my opinion it’s best feature is the built in Windows installer customization. When flashing the Windows installer, a pop-up enables you to configure a set of custom features, such as automatically setting a local admin user account, effectively bypassing the Microsoft account login. Microsoft formerly allowed windows users to skip the account sign-in, but in recent updates its become a mandatory step in their setup process (this is frustrating for many reasons, but awesome in the sense that it gives me another thing to write about soon). Rufus also includes several other options to assist in debloating the Windows installer, however the bulk of the changes happen after the initial OS setup. Let’s fast forward. Once Windows is installed, you have several options to carry-out the true debloat process. My choice (and arguably the most popular) is WinUtil - a tool created by Chris Titus Tech. It can be easily accessed through a simple command prompt, and loads instantly with minimal headache. Just open your terminal, and use:

irm "https://christitus.com/win" | iex

Once loaded, you can access a large host of settings and built-in presets. Hovering over each setting displays a general description and recommendation as to what it does and how it could affect the usability of your Windows OS. Additionally, I was also excited to see it also includes 0&0 ShutUp++ - an antispy tool to remove and disable privacy-compromising features/processes included by default in Windows 10 and 11. While I would prefer using an open source solution with similar features (i.e. Privatezilla, WindowsSpyBlocker, MajorPrivacy, SophiaScript), I realize the ease of use and convenient access is more suitable for most people. WinUtil also includes a bulk installer option for a large selection of apps and software, making it an even more convenient method to streamline a fresh Windows install (although I still love Ninite to bulk install a lot of my essentials). All-in-all, I discovered a useful new tool in WinUtil. Now, let’s get back to the debloat.

Before making my desired changes, I was sure to set a restore point in case I -broke- anything (update: nothing broken… yet), then used the “advanced” preset to pre-select one of the curated configurations. In my opinion Chris probably could have gone a little more extreme on the configuration used for the “advanced” preset, but I know my needs vary from other’s. I viewed the possible selections and selected/unselected those I found applicable. Once selected, it was as easy as hitting “apply” and I watched commands execute automatically in the terminal as WinUtil debloated my system. Once finished, I opened 0&0 ShutUp++ using the built in functionality (I assume WinUtil uses the portable version of ShutUp10++). It includes a very extensive selection of settings and features, many of which can break your system in various ways if not configured correctly. I -HIGHLY- recommend reading the description for every option, as the labels used to define them are not always inherent as to what effect they can have. As a bonus, you can save and export your ShutUp10++ config file for reuse at a later date. This is very helpful if you find yourself installing or reinstalling Windows often, with a need to include custom privacy features for personal or professional environments.

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Results.

So, after all that, what are we left with? To put it bluntly, a LOT less Microsoft BS, and a LOT more usability. I’m averaging around 90-100 processes running on my Laptop’s CPU on boot - down from the previous 140-170. Believe me, that’s a lot. Windows 11 is also eating significantly less ram now - somewhere around 1-1.5GB less.

There ARE alternative OS flavors of Windows that produce similar results (i.e. ReviOS, AtlasOS), but I much prefer having control over the specifics of what features I enable. I do feel obligated to clarify that while my results were very similar (or even superior in some areas) to Revi and Atlas, I used a very curated and personalized selection of features and settings compared to WinUtil’s prebuilt options (suitable to users with more traditional use-cases). In using only the prebuilt selections, you sacrifice performance, but maintain a wider compatibility and ease-of-use in areas significant to common professional software and processes. I also feel I should mention that Revi and Atlas, while highly compatible with traditional Windows software, were both designed around specific purposes. Atlas is a gaming-specific take on Windows, with an absolute focus on increasing performance. Revi is more generalized and was originally intended to maintain Windows usability in older devices, however its out-of-box performance results are similar to Atlas in many ways, such as gaming (although this definitely depends on your hardware and what your running). At the end of the day they’re both very similar to each other, and if your looking to simplify the Windows debloat process, using an already modified version could be a preferable option (more or less… it can get a little more complicated when installing/maintaining modified versions of Windows, but we’ll cover that another day). My point is: There are already modified versions of Windows out there that are debloated and ready to go, but you can achieve similar results with a fresh install of base Windows 11 and a little effort (and choose your own settings/features in the process).

All in all, regardless of which method you find most favorable, there are definitely benefits and performance gains to be found. Users applying these methods to devices with older hardware will see the most noticeable gains, as freeing up even 1GB of RAM can mean the world if you only had 8GB to spare, and having less processes running on older or lower-end CPU’s can increase both battery life and performance speed during gaming and productivity work. Those are just examples, but you get my point. If your looking to extend the lifecycle of an older computer (and unwilling to make the all-powerful switch to Linux), performing a Windows debloat could be your saving grace. Even if your running the latest and greatest hardware offerings, you can still find noticeable gains in the simplicity and security of your machine. Whats not to love?

Thanks for reading! More to come soon - so many ideas and so little time!

• Harrison Stone