Hey y’all

I’m taking a college course which is hell bent that its students use Windows 11. Currently my laptop is still using Windows 10 and if there is no bloatware/AI free way to install Windows 11, I’m just going to bite the bullet and install it the regular way. So if anyone knows of a relatively bloatware free way of installing Windows 11, please let me know.

p.s. For those who would encourage me to use Linux. For my desktop I already use Linux Mint.

    • dual_sport_dork 🐧🗡️@lemmy.worldEnglish
      17·
      2 months ago

      ↑ This right here is the best answer in this thread.

      For further nagware avoidance, remember that the Enterprise editions of Windows come bundled with the group policy editor (gpedit.msc, stick that in your run prompt) and will respect group policy settings with the intent of system administrators having control over various components and features.

      In your case, the system administrator is you.

      For the purposes of decluttering your start menu specifically, for instance, I’ll link everyone to this comment I wrote the other day which lists off the policy settings you’ll want to mess with — including disabling Copilot completely.

  • nottelling@lemmy.worldEnglish
    11·
    2 months ago

    The most correct answer so far is Win11 IoT. But there’s a good chance it won’t have enough “windows” for your school needs.

    If you’re just trying to get work done and not trying to stick it to the man with the purity test that this thread seems to insist upon, you can install normally and force an offline user. (Microsoft keeps threatening to kill this capability, it still worked last time I tried early last year.)

    Then run Chris Titus debloat utility before you set up anything else.

    If you don’t have a registration, you can activate it with massgrave.dev.

    • Apytele@sh.itjust.works
      2·
      2 months ago

      If you’re just trying to get work done and not trying to stick it to the man with the purity test that this thread seems to insist upon

      School for my healthcare career had several "virtual clinical experiences that were graded and required windows. They did help us memorize the basics a little before touching a real patient but they were probably also spyware in the grading functionality. In the end though I didn’t have a choice. Some of us just don’t, especially those of us picking careers in public safety. I’m just grateful they provided the iPads for when we used the charting software that required iOS.

          • lemmyman@lemmy.world
            1·
            2 months ago

            Some professional software licensing options dint work in vms, either.

            Solidworks single-seat licenses won’t activate in a VM, for instance.

            Not saying that’s OPs specific use case, but it’s an example of another constraint

    • VeganCheesecake@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      3·
      2 months ago

      Yeah. From experience, even moderately powerful laptops can run a win11 ltsc iot VM pretty easy, and that runs everything you need that wine can’t.

      For reference, my current laptop has an 8th gen i5, 32 GB RAM. I use the VM for Lightroom, affinity. Runs perfectly fine with 4 Threads and 16 gigs of RAM.

    • shalafi@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      2 months ago

      You have no idea what is going on behind the scenes, and neither do I, so we can’t call it bullshit by default.

    • timbuck2themoon@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      4·
      2 months ago

      This works very well if youre technically inclined. I have to set up windows sometimes for people and this lets me simply select the drive then it goes. No one drive, local accounts, no bloatware, etc. Super nice.

      • towerful@programming.dev
        3·
        2 months ago

        It’s not that difficult, is it?

        I mean, it’s not like running a program on an already installed windows, or using the windows 11 installer to install from windows.
        Otherwise, it’s the basic steps for installing any OS except for creating the unattended.xml file.

        Use the media creation tool to create install media on a USB drive, work through the generator (Google what you need to), drop the resulting XML onto the drive, reboot from USB and install as normal.

        • timbuck2themoon@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          2·
          2 months ago

          I’ve only used it with ventoy. Didn’t know if you could plop it in the root of a normal flash drive that has the windows installer or not.

          Not really hard with ventoy either but I don’t like to assume what’s easy for me is easy for someone else.

          • towerful@programming.dev
            2·
            2 months ago

            Yeh, ventoy takes an extra step (but ventoy is itself an extra step): find the iso from a legit source instead of using the media creation tool, install software to edit iso, add unattended.xml to the iso, plop iso on ventoy drive.

            Anyone playing around with or working with Linux/windows:
            Check out ventoy. I think they’ve solved their issues of binary blobs and it is so useful.
            Create a Ventoy usb drive. Drag any and all OS ISOs onto the USB stick. Boot from the USB, choose which ISO to actually boot.
            Want to switch flavours of live Linux (or try another installer)? Boot from usb, choose different ISO.
            Absolutely fantastic software

  • MuttMutt@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    2 months ago

    This is where computers with two dives shines. If you install windows on a drive then remove it and install a second drive with anything else you like you can then manually swap the drive in the UEFI just like booting from USB or optical when both are installed.

    Another option is grab a second drive (nvme or sata) that works in your computer. Swap it out for test taking physically. You can also check if your computer can access a memory card directly and use that to install a removable os on, cfexpress would be ideal but the drives can get insanely expensive. Microsd express would work but it’s slower.

    Can’t help with windows 11. Never used it beyond looking in a store at a computer. I disliked 10 and ran openshell just to make it usable. Didn’t even want to try to fix 11 once linux was viable.

  • yeehaw@lemmy.ca
    24·
    2 months ago

    No, the only answer is mac/bsd/Linux. Vote with their market share.