Making Windows 11 Less Terrible

So I’ve been a linux user for many years but now and then I use windows for a few reasons. First is that my laptop’s wifi chip has a rocky history with linux kernel support. It feels like there’s a bug every few versions or so. Second, I’m learning how to make electronic music and I have an Ableton Live license but not a license for bitwig (reaper doesn’t really fit what I want to do). However, Windows 11 out of the box, even Pro edition, is a hot mess. There’s a decent operating system struggling to get out from all the MBA bullshit. So, here’s what I do to make windows 11 more bareable. This is focused mainly on Pro edition but some of this applies to home. Frankly, home edition is windows at its worst and it sucks so much they lock their less awful version behind a higher paywall. Only reason I have pro is my laptop came with it.

Local account

Microsoft really doesn’t want you using windows with a local account but fuck what they want. Modern ISOs don’t allow you to proceed if you don’t have internet so they can force you to log in which sucks because 1) I don’t wanna 2) my wifi card isn’t supported by the ISO. So, once you install and get to the setup screen, use Shift+F10 to open a command line, and use the command OOBE\BypassNro

Group policy

The group policy editor (gpedit.msc) is one of the most powerful tools for bending windows to your will. It’s sadly only for pro and enterprise, though. The group policy changes I edit are based on Privacy guides’s list but I do a couple more:

• Local Computer policy > Computer configuration > Administrative templates > Windows Components > Windows AI. Turn off recall (defunct for now but you never know), click to do, and remove the copilot app (does anyone even use that app even if they like AI?)

You might have to check back sometimes to see if new policies were added or an update changed the value (which isn’t supposed to happen but this is microsoft)

UI

One of the parts I hate the most about windows 11 is the start menu. It’s a slow as hell edgeview with a bunch of useless features even after disabling most of them with gepedit. There’s a few ways to replace or modify it, one is Windhawk, but the one I prefer is Openshell. It’s basically the windows 7 start menu.

If you follow the previous step, you should have the clipboard history disabled. I personally don’t like the windows clipboard manager and also I don’t like all the “syncing” features. Sometimes, though, it is nice to have a clipboard history option. I like copyq for this.

Windows has a phone companion called phone link but it requires logging in with a microsoft account. I prefer using windows with a local account so this is a no-go for me. Luckily, a favorite from linux is here too: KDEConnect.

Development

WSL is essential for web dev because node is pretty slow on windows because of NTFS (I think). wsl --install gets the system set up and, after a reboot, you can install a distro and set it as default with wsl --install -d <distro>. To list available distros, wsl --list --online. Some distros set up a wheel user with sudo and everything, some, like Arch, don’t. Arch has a good wiki entry on this. WSL also works with a few text editors. Visual Studio Code, Zed, and Gram (I think) all provide a way to develop on wsl with a gui editor. Or you can use neovim in the terminal or something.

Conclusion

That’s all I have so far but if I remember or find any others I’ll update this post! Windows has some good features and lobotomizing its worst features makes it surprisingly decent.