I’m going to get started on my AM5 upgrade today. I plan to do a totally clean install. Win11 on a new M.2 drive. Right now my ideas are:
Create a stripped down Windows installer using the tool described in this video. It lets you debloat Windows (no Edge, Cortana, camera, etc.) I’ve used it before on a domain computer that only runs a database and it worked great. I know I’d need to make sure a Microsoft login is created, and that anything to do with Xbox tools are preserved . Any other features the sim might need? The installer eliminates all the privacy telemetry, and I wonder whether the sim needs any of that.
My original install was Win10, and I used the digital key to upgrade to Win11. I’m thinking of using a Win11 retail USB I have and using the existing Product Code to authenticate the new install. Shouldn’t be a problem, right?
Right now I’ve got Windows on a 500GB M.2, and the sim is installed on a 1TB M.2. I’m upgrading the first drive to 1TB.
Or should I just buy a single 4TB M.2 and load everything on it?
I’ll probably have more questions as I go, but for now, any thoughts you might have on the three questions above is greatly appreciated.
All my mods are currently in Addons_Linker on a SATA SSD drive, so those shouldn’t pose a problem. If I go with a 4TB drive I’d just move the AL folder to that new drive for faster load times (although the current config loads my addons pretty quickly. And I don’t think scenery file I/O is a problem from the SSD. Some have argued that “milliseconds count” and maybe they do and I just don’t notice it.
Just bought a 2gb m.2 in preparation for 2024, also going to do a debloated win 11 install. I’m going to have a dedicated drive for the sim, that way if I do a clean install again I don’t have to download everything again
That makes sense, and is the reason I did it that way the first time.
What Windows features did you keep with the debloated ISO?
Am I right that all the sim needs is a Microsoft login and everything Xbox?
No other telemetry needed?
After the last debloated install I only had 83 processes running when first logged in. My current full Win11 install has 243 background processes running, and a whole bunch of services I don’t need.
It should, but Microsoft loves to weave interconnectivity in and through all sorts of things so that it trips up users if you delete things they want you to run. You might be fine or you might have CTDs or blue screens occasionally and that will get hard to troubleshoot if it happens. No way to know if it will happen, though.
As for layout, I have Windows on one m.2 and the sim on another. It has greatly simplified Windows rebuilds and installs over the life of the sim so far. I use Steam and one change all I did was tell a new Steam install after a Windows install where FS was and it downloaded the FS bootloader and I was running again. It found everything else. Had I put FS on the same drive I would have had to redownload everything when I reinstalled Windows.
Gotcha. I’ve never done a Windows reinstall on my gaming computer or any other computer I manage. So I can’t really relate to that part.
I understand the risks of debloating Windows, but really, if you look at the XML utility you’ll see it’s pretty granular. Basically, it’s designed to use built-in hidden Windows installer features to create as close a build to LTSC as possible. I’ve suffered through enough Windows Update problems to know I’d prefer to not have those hassles.
I haven’t decided which way to go yet, and I do appreciate your feedback.
Very good advice imho. I answer every option with a firm nope when it asks you for permission to spy on you and your usage. Straight after I install windows, and after each update, I check what is loaded at start up with a programme called Autoruns. I selectively switch off the things I do not want running at system start up. You can also check to see which services are running in the background through your computer management. For anything that you do not understand, then use a web search engine.
And I totally agree MS are constantly switching things around to make it harder to switch things off. I sincerely hope that we gain laws in the future to peg this as being illegal.
Many drivers and games now do this also. MS are not the only ones guilty in this. Just look at your network traffic and ask yourself why Corsair and the likes need to be constantly sending information back to base all the time. Anyone using Blizzard’s battlenet app may not have noticed that the Battlenet now installs spyware at the system startup called battlenet_helpersvc. Your information and data is a very valuable asset. They use this information to provide a “better service”. This will always fall under the definition of making that company more money.
My “current full Win11 install” has
so it might be that the problem is not Windows.
My vote would be just install Windows 11.
These days, you get a “clean” installation in any case, with your original stored in a Windows.old folder in case you want to roll back.
Is it really a ‘clean’ install what with this bloatware? Not to mention the telemetry that you can’t turn off with the ‘feel good’ switches during installation.
This may not be a perfect list, but you get the idea…
Cortana
Maps
Microsoft Feedback
Microsoft Tips
Microsoft Teams
Microsoft Skype
Preloaded Office Apps
Phone Link
3D Viewer
Facebook
Hidden City: Hidden Object Adventure
Instagram
Netflix
News
Prime Video
Solitaire Collection
Adobe Express
Clipchamp
Mixed Reality Portal (being deprecated soon)
TikTok
Age of Empires: Castle Siege
Asphalt 8: Airborne
Bubble Witch 3 Saga
Candy Crush Friends Saga
Candy Crush Saga
FarmVille 2: Country Escape
Fitbit Coach
Gardenscapes
Phototastic Collage
PicsArt Photo Studio: Collage Maker and Pic Editor
It can be real granular but also a huge problem. IIRC Microsoft lost an antitrust case over this but years ago during the “browser wars”, Microsoft wanted to block people from uninstalling Internet Explorer because people were uninstalling it and loading Netscape. Their solution was to intentionally take parts of Internet Explorer out and put them in Windows. They also took parts of Windows and put it into Internet Explorer.
They did this because the courts weren’t buying that Internet Explorer was an integral part of Windows, so they made it an integral part of Windows. When users would uninstall Internet Explorer, it would brick their systems and force a reinstall of Windows.
It unfortunately wasn’t all Microsoft did back then. They have a track record and a long history of bad actions that have landed them in courts all over the world.
Hopefully what you’re planning is fine and it may be. I’m not in any way saying to install full Windows. Just giving a heads up that Microsoft has done stuff before if you end up having trouble.
Yep. It seems every update is an opportunity to default us back into a cloud drive or other ways Microsoft can “help” us by having us send them data to “improve services”. Complete my searches? Sure! But it gives Microsoft a full list of what we search for. Etc, ad nauseum. It’s like a bad child who won’t keep their hands out of the cookie jar and I resent big time having to go check and fix what they change. Privacy settings my eye.
Poet - was that from a Windows install on a PC bought as a unit at a store somewhere? Or was that all found after a “clean” install using a Windows image from Microsoft?
Store bought PCs are almost always loaded with bloatware and what I consider malware, but if that’s from a Microsoft install image I’ve got probably some more cleaning of my own to do.
This right here is why I use Linux for everything except Flight Simulator and a few other applications. I always power down my Windows box when not in use. And I don’t have my Windows PC and Linux PC on ever at the same time.
Re: Installing software Microsoft recently-(ish) added new features to Windows which makes this super easy. If you want more information let me know and I can give you a run down.
TLDR: Windows has a built-in package manager called Winget.
There is a command prompt you can run to feed a YML file into Winget and have it install specific programs each with its own options including but not limited to: source, allow pre-release, version, etc.
This utility can also make certain system configuration changes, and if you are a power-user you can get it to do almost anything.
I’d share my configuration file with you as an example, but seeing it’s on my GitHub account, I would be violating the forum Code of Conduct by linking it to you
I have all those uninstalled/disabled anyway … not that it matters in W11 because it’s clever enough to hibernate them all when gaming, what you are actually seeing are little more than placeholders
Windows memory and process manager is more than capable of freeing resources and pausing tasks, far better than you second guessing it. Install and forget about it.
I’m all for a clean install of windows but I think the default image is fine. We’re a long way from the days where a random app would suddenly try and do some scheduled task and your mechanical hard drive suddenly has to go grinding away.
I’m not saying a debloated image isn’t faster but you’re on the road of diminishing returns in terms of performance gains and potentially causing yourself a headache when, as others mentioned, some ridiculous dependency is missing.
It’s a utility that created a customizable XML file that I copied to the root of a retail Win11 flash drive. Windows installed normally on a brand new white box PC I built, without the bloatware I chose to omit.
. Any other features the sim might need? The installer eliminates all the privacy telemetry, and I wonder whether the sim needs any of that.
