Hey everyone, anyone who has watched this channel for any period knows I’m big fan of Windows and all their great personalities:

  • We have the walking Tim Allen clone, Yusuf Medhi, who’s survived almost 3 decades of Microsoft turnover and now resorts to shilling AI products.
  • We have the lawyer, now appointed eternal president, Brad Smith, the guard dog of Microsoft from its political and anti-monopoly adversaries.
  • We have Satya Nadella, our lovely new CEO, and every time he opens his mouth it sounds like something written by an AI construct.
  • Of course, we couldn’t forget the family man of failure, Panos Costa Panay (not to be confused for his brother Panos Andreas Panay), who brags about the achievements of his loved ones in awkwardly rehearsed Microsoft keynotes!

I rattle off all of these experienced Microsoft veterans because all of them are disgusting individuals who have run Windows as a product into the ground and sold you out for a quick buck! Windows was already on a downward trend at Microsoft as their enterprise products began to take off and how Windows 8 almost bankrupted Microsoft as a company.

The Degradation of Windows

Of course, desperate times call for desperate measures with Microsoft resorting their classic behavior whenever things go wrong–run a product into the ground and don’t communicate anything clearly. And what better way to do this by dragging your privacy through the mud?

The seeds were planted into Windows 8 with the shilling of various Microsoft products, now with full-blown ads strewn across the Windows interface! Windows for years is a privacy invasion which took everything to a whole new level, featuring great things like:

And I could go on for at least an hour, but you get the idea. At this point, Microsoft makes a more compelling case for the year of the Linux desktop than actual Linux users! But I could whine and moan all day, but I have better things to do with my time and so do you–you’re not just going to sit there and let Microsoft pull these shenanigans on you!

Picking a Windows Version

Let’s start with the high level stuff and unfortunately, this is where the options for some of you are going to get really limited: Windows Home is not a viable means to use your computer, because you lose a lot of control over your system. Bitlocker is paywalled, you’re forced to use a Microsoft account, and you don’t have access to Group Policy Editor (I know you could hack it on in Home, but even that’s limited).

And yes, I’m going to backtrack on something I said on a video 2 years ago about bypassing Windows 11’s system requirements. I’m no long okay with this for multiple reasons:

Licensing

Now we get into the complexities of Windows licensing.

  • Windows Home is by far the worst one. Microsoft believes in paywalling features like Bitlocker, your security, and Group Policy Editor, your privacy. Yes, there are ways to turn these features back on with Powershell and tweaks, but it’s by far a nerfed experience.
  • Windows Pro, Education, and Enterprise are the way to go. You get the full experience. With Education and Enterprise, you need to request a quote from Microsoft and apply with personal information. Use Education/Enterprise if by some miracle you get a computer with it (e.g. my workplace uses Windows 11 Enterprise), purchase a (new) computer with these versions in mind, or use a motherboard without an OEM key.

Do not buy keys from resellers. There are circles on many third party marketplaces that rip people off over this and it’s rampant. Cut out the middleman and buy it directly through Microsoft. Better yet, in-person with cash at a Micro Center, Best Buy, or local store.

And if the concern is money, Windows Pro can be used unlicensed for free with little drawback! You just can’t set your wallpaper through a GUI and get a glaring watermark.

I got a complaint in a previous video that installing Windows 11 in KVM gave them the watermark when they used the generic key to get Windows for free. As I always say, when you see this watermark, you’ll be proud you didn’t pay for Windows and saved $100+

Windows 10/11 Pro

VK7JG-NPHTM-C97JM-9MPGT-3V66T

Windows 10/11 Home

While I don’t use Windows Home, I have had to use this key to bail out friends and family.

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On Modified ISOs, AtlasOS, Debloating, Piracy…

This also goes without saying, stay away from modified Windows ISOs, like Tiny11 or pirated ISOs. With something as critical as your operating system, especially a consumer focused operating system like Windows, you want to stay in the default security model where possible.

We’re not going to do reckless things like disabling Microsoft Defender or blocking Windows updates. As much I get annoyed by these programs, there’s no way to completely turn off the privacy invasion.

In fact, while I was editing this video, Linus Tech Tips recommended this new abomination called AtlasOS (formerly Windows Ameliorated Edition or AME), where they tear apart Windows 10 21H2 and use a playbook to rip the supposed “bloat” out of it. It’s an absolute travesty and Linus Tech Tips and his team should be ashamed of themselves for making such an ill-formed opinion to millions of people:

I’ve said that Linus himself isn’t the brightest tool in the shed, but seriously, his apology over this video is frankly pathetic. Projects like this should be avoided like the plague because they actively harm the security of their users. Without security, you lose all privacy and usability guarantees. 💀

Getting the ISO

Now you go to Microsoft’s website to download Windows 11 (or the Media Creation Tool on Windows), but when I went to go download it over a VPN, it blocked me claiming:

Error: We are unable to complete your request at this time. Some users, entities and locations are banned from using this service. For this reason, leveraging anonymous or location hiding technologies when connecting to this service is not generally allowed. If you believe that you encountered this problem in error, please try again. If the problem persists you may contact Microsoft Support — Contact Us page for assistance. Refer to message code 715-123130 and cbbb416b-6b25-495d-85c2-51ee50d3779c.

So if you value Microsoft not getting your IP address, my recommendation is take a laptop or tablet and download the ISO at your local coffee shop. Heck, go to your local Apple Store just to spite them! But I was prepared for this day: I hoarded a copy of Windows 11 22H1 for myself and I will just use this to install Windows from now on. Once you get your ISO, hide it away somewhere so you can use it when you need it; you never know if you or a loved one needs to use Windows.

Installation

Installing Windows isn’t horribly difficult, but there’s a ton of down time while you wait for it to install. There’s also the newly found pain of Windows of getting an offline account. Since we should care about our privacy, we’re going to be using an offline account and we need to plug up Microsoft siphoning more information and tying it to an online, aggregated identity.

By the time, YOU, future you, is watching this, Microsoft may have patched out everything I’m saying. I’m presenting the situation as of May 2023.

  • Windows Pro and up, select “Sign-in Options” -> “Offline account”
  • Windows Home users, disconnect yourself from the internet. If you are prompted to connect via Wi-Fi, just click “Back” or pressing a dedicated Airplane Mode button.
  • If you enter in a random username/password, they won’t check and then let you set up a local account.
  • If these don’t work, on the Microsoft account screen, enter in a Microsoft email address that has been banned from Microsoft. I have a few banned Microsoft accounts I use, but the most famous was from Steve Parker at Neowin, where you use the email address [email protected] and a fake password. Microsoft will tell you something went wrong and then let you create a local account.

(If you’re curious about this email, this email was created by someone at Citi Bank and it’s related to their rewards program.)

After you survived the account creation process, uncheck every box you see, say no to everything they offer to do, and wait 10 million years for Windows to get set up.

Post Install

Next thing I do is go to Windows Update and just download as many updates as I possibly can. While that happens, go to the Microsoft Store and update all of the Store apps. It’s really tedious and takes at least an hour, but it’s worth it to get the security updates you need.

Even if you do what you can to change your privacy settings, Microsoft will undermine your choice and change settings during Patch Tuesday, which you should be installing automatically and applying. If you’re worried about Windows Update failing, wait it out a week. If you didn’t hear any squawking from journalists, smash that update button and get your updates.

Package Managers

The next things I try out is the package managers. Linux created central stores to download things and yet Microsoft only got started in the Windows 8 era, where it languished for years, until Microsoft redid it recently.

Winget

Windows now has its own package manager, but it’s not enabled by default. We’re going to enable winget, so we can use winget from Windows Terminal. While winget is nice since all UWP apps through Microsoft are sandboxed, it does come with some limitations.

  1. Not everything most people need is going to be in here, specifically things like graphics drivers that require their own installation or update modules.
  2. Anything in winget is subject to Microsoft’s arbitration. While you can download browsers like Brave and Firefox here, Firefox outside of the Microsoft Store comes with a hack to set it automatically as your default for all file extensions. Microsoft will refuse to let them be the default through the Store, unlike their manually installed counterparts.
  3. Despite promising openness, the Microsoft Store has some very poorly communicated terms from Microsoft and their developers. While they quickly backpedalled, it’s safe to say you have to trust Microsoft to use their store.
  4. Pre-2021 games and software bought through a Microsoft/Xbox account have UWP DRM. This DRM makes these games unplayable as Microsoft’s DRM specifically ties it to your version of Windows. This way, should the game crackers crack one version of the game, the crack won’t work on a newer version of Windows. DRM is one of the worst things about the Microsoft Store.

We have a product for people who aren’t able to get connectivity, it’s called Xbox 360.

Don Mattrick, former CEO of Xbox on DRM | 1:53