installing windows in a nutshell

Yet I bet they will still collect many, many gigabytes

Correct, those settings are cosmetic
- Chris titus has a nice tool which removes as much telemetry as possible. You can get rid of a considerable piece of telemetry in group policy editor, services and regedit.
  Despite that, windows will never be as private as macos and macos will never be as private as linux.
- Source?

Click, Tab, space, Tab, space, Tab, space, Tab, space, Tab, tab, space

This is why I make students install a copy of Windows without the use of a mouse.

Mr.Gates is not in Microsoft for years, but yes

Surprised there wasn't a conspiratorial reference to covid testing in the meme tbh

Switched to Linux... got tired of them changing the settings for me with updates.

Might have been one of the best decisions of your life!

Bill Gates no longer works for Microsoft. He couldn't care less about you're data.

No, you're data!
Let us hope he is not just data but an actual person.
That's the part of joke

The illusion of choice

Welcome to “windows as a service”. At this point Windows is basically like a freemium app.

Yes, except the free part
- Wait, you're paying for Windows?

I just bought a used laptop that came with windows 11. After all of this data collection crap it started blue screening after I installed the first set of updates.

Pop Os has been running flawlessly.

Slipstreamed windows is the only way. Skip all this bullshit and pre-remove all the bloatware fuckery too. Highly recommend if you are installing windows regularly: https://techcult.com/how-to-slipstream-windows-10-installation/

OOSU10 is also helpful if you don't wanna mess with install media.

Our internal documentation for setting up a windows VM literally says "Press 'maybe later' for the next 9 screens"

Every year that passes makes me happier I switched to Linux only instead of dual booting. Happy Debian user here.

Where linux tho

On the USB stick

Ribbit

What’s the best way to get it?
- Ribbit

Spoiler alert, when you hit accept all tabs go back to "on".

You guys should try making your install media using Rufus

rufus, woeusb, ventoy all work most of the time
- i really like ventoy, but when i tried to install fedora a few months ago it wouldn't work for some reason. I switched back to just flashing one iso at a time now through the recommended way since i usually don't need more than one iso anyway.
I recently created win11 install media with rufus and I was amazed with what it can do. Makes the whole install a breeze since you don't need to turn off the telemetry and log in to M$ account. All around plesant experience

When entering security questions:

down arrow tab keyboardspamkeyboardspamkeyboardspam enter

I'm using NTLite for the last two years to make "custom Windows" that gets rid of much of these data-grabbing s**t. I recommend people here to try it.

You have tons of features like disabling default shit like teams, photos, the much-hated media player, default apps etc. And enable local account creation without resorting to Shift+F10 to CMD and typing the bypass command there.

It also cuts off the other versions of Windows 11 that you don't want in the boot media. I recommend this software over others because you only need to customize it once before you install the OS. Here

Yeah nah... I think I'd rather take a FOSS mod tool. Or, you know, stay in Linux at much as i can, as of now.

I LITERALLY do this every single day at work

If this is is actually your job you should look into automating it, you can configure it once and have it auto install with the same settings each time
- I have been looking into that, however when we get new systems, don't really wanna have to reinstall to automate the setup

To be honest, I'd forgotten that "installing windows" was a thing

Does it required a microsoft account now? Or can we still install it without connected to the internet

Yeah but I turn on airplane mode and it doesn't need an account anymore. Lpt for those of you out there.
Actually, better tip, use Linux.
- True, but i still need to keep a copy of windows for my average Joe friends. Not gonna preach the hard way thought, i want them to slowly convert to Linux hahaha.
  Especially more and more games arw supported in Linux, either native or via proton
  Me myself, already using Linux for the past 3 Years :D
- That stopped working for home editions of windows. On pro you can say you are joining a local domain, but on home you have to use a workaround, such as the bypass command or a locked out account.
I think it's still technically possible with some workaround but they indeed kind of killed offline accounts with Windows 11
- It’s not hard at all, when making an account one of the options is to make it offline/local only. Sure it’s a small link below the big buttons but it’s there and not hidden.
Yeah, but you can create local account.
With the installing media running:
• Shift+F10 (opens cmd) > OOBE\BYPASSNRO
• Continue until getting to creating account
◦◦ Account > 123@123.com/test@test.com/a@b.com/1@1.ru/fuckoff@microsoft.com/a@outlook.com/d@d.d/na@na.com
◦◦ Password > enter any random password
• […] > How would you like to set up this device > Set up for work or school
With an existing system:
• CMD > net user /add *
E: Wording.
- I heard that you can insert any invalid email address.
- Nice info, gonna try it later. Thank you
  Edit:
  Is it working only for windows 10? Or can the same applied to win11?