All good baring Google as the default search engine, not doing that.
Again, that's merely taster's choice. Most prefer Google as their search engine. But if Bing or any of the others are more your speed, more power to you. I was more saying that changing the search engine is the only change I make to Edge to make it fine for my needs.
W10 is pretty robust, as is W11. Somethings need to be tamed for the sake of the user not the provider which is the point of this post.
Right, I'm talking ABOUT the user. Also as a provider, at the end of the day, I too, am a user. I'm talking about getting a Windows installation to be as smooth and as stable as a macOS installation.
Buy a new PC, I tend to format the drive and install Windows. If the infestation isn't too bad I'll kill the unwanted processes via
Sysinternals AutoRuns, if they cant start, they don't run.
A default Windows installation doesn't entail processes that require any of that. Again, you wanted to talk about the user, not the provider.
I don't have an answer to this, other then my observation that many people who are in the debloat camp adhere to a no update mentality. I'm not knocking it but I do think its risky imo
I'm knocking it. It makes zero sense and only makes things insecure with no actual benefit. I can understand wanting to defer Feature Update releases to new versions of Windows 10 or Windows 11, and you can do that for a time while still getting security updates to the version that you are on (though doing that for Windows 10 is pointless since the only changes even being made are security related). But if you ABSOLUTELY NEED your Windows installation to not change, acquire a copy of the LTSC version and rock that for however long it is supported (though deferring monthly cumulative updates on that is still just as poor of a practice).
Sysinternal's Autoruns provides a deep enough dive to show what's running. It gives me peace of mind of finding everything.
Whatever floats your boat. There's not much running that shouldn't be running. And it's not like anything deemed non-essential that is running is eating up anywhere near enough resources to actually make a difference. You have tons of daemons running on macOS that pertain to things you are likely only using so little of the time. Why are running services in a stock installation of Windows treated any differently?
I kind of like the idea of making sure none of the cruft is laying about. True that if you're not short on space its not impacting performance but keeping a tidy computer isn't a bad thing.
It's not a bad thing, but a default installation of Windows 10 or Windows 11 IS tidy. Worrying about what processes Microsoft has running by default before you've even installed anything is about OCD and unfamiliarity with Windows than it is about actually making a practical difference in how your Windows installation actually runs. You also risk doing more damage to the OS's stability and security.
I work fairly often in the registry for my job and I personally don't find the need to clean it. The inverse, in the early days of windows registry clean up utilities did more harm then good. With that said, I find uninstalling utilities that clean up all bits of an application including the registry is beneficial.
Eh...your mileage is going to vary wildly on this one. Some uninstaller do a better job than others. The only time I've needed to go into the registry to do anything in the last 15 years is (a) building package installers for Microsoft Intune and SCCM and (b) when dealing with third party software written by people who don't know how to develop software for Windows. But, again, your mileage can vary wildly in those cases too.
The OP created the thread for things he found useful for his usage, and I totally get that those things don't fit your needs. Many don't fit my needs but I also learned about a few things, and I think that in of itself is helpful.
Not disagreeing with that. But the post wasn't about things that are tailored toward the OP's use cases for Windows. It was about providing a stable and smooth Windows experience. It's wonderful that those utilities are out there. But I'm not going to ever agree with the notion that they are NECESSARY in order to have said stable and smooth Windows experience.
thanks, so how will MS (or Windows) know the key was tied to my system if i wiped my HDD?
also... is Office a separate install, or included in the Windows installer as most Windows systems seem to come with a "30 days Office trial"?
same question regarding the acknowledgment of that key
As things stand today, For Windows:
if you bought a common name brand PC running the original Windows 8 all the way through the current version of Windows 11, that PC will have in its BIOS, the product key for whichever edition of Windows came with that PC. The Windows installer for Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows 10, and Windows 11 will all automatically see that key, not prompt you to enter it, and then activate following the initial out-of-box-experience part of Windows setup. It's transparent and is, from a user perspective, not different from installing macOS on a Mac.
Separately, a Windows 7 Professional, Windows 7 Ultimate, Windows 8 Pro, or Windows 8.1 Pro product key will automatically license and activate Windows 10 Pro or Windows 11 Pro, while a Windows 10 Pro key will only activate Windows 10 Pro and Windows 11 Pro. Same goes for Home versions. These days, you pretty much only need a product key if (a) you have a volume license agreement and you are activating an Enterprise version of either Windows 10 or Windows 11, (b) you are building your PC yourself, (c) you are installing Windows on an Intel Mac via Boot Camp, or (d) you are creating a virtual machine and installing Windows 10 or Windows 11 on that.
For Office: You either subscribe to Microsoft 365 (formerly "Office 365") in which case you only really deal with product keys if you buy your subscription from a retail establishment. You'd enter it online in your Microsoft account and then never need to use it again because the license is then, from that point on, tied to your Microsoft account. Similarly, if you buy a perpetual license version of Office 2019 or Office 2021, you do the same thing. Just like on the Mac versions.
It's only Office 2016 for Windows and earlier wherein you'd need to enter the product key at the time of installation and for each installation.
