Hey, need some help for bulk storage for games. Which one should i choose:

A. Classic Hard Disk Drive

B. SATA SSD

I'm trying to choose between a 2 - 4TB SATA SSD or a 2- 4TB HDD for 10+ year reliability. Which one should choose for this purpose?

There are many tools out there claiming to help you "de-bloat" Windows 11. Some people swear by them, whereas some people don't trust them at all.

Now, if you're one of those people not wanting to switch to a different OS and not wanting to pirate the LTSC version or use a "de-bloat" tool, here are a few steps you can follow to remove all the unwanted apps and "ads" from non-LTSC SKUs.

Nuking unwanted store apps with PowerShell

PowerShell comes standard with a set of cmdlets that let you manage store apps. Third-party "de-bloat" guides on the Internet rarely mention them, but these potent cmdlets (PowerShell jargon for native commands) have been around since as far back as Windows 8 and are the native way to get the job done. For our purpose, we'll only need Get-AppxPackage and Remove-AppxPackage.

Before you jump right into PowerShell, hold your horses and read this paragraph first. Since Windows 11, Microsoft has introduced a new console host for text-mode applications that is also itself a store app, meaning that if you run cmd.exe or pwsh.exe by directly invoking it, it will open automatically inside this new console app. Though this won't cause too much of a problem, you'll likely end up having to run Remove-AppxPackage twice due to the console app getting closed and deleted by the command itself. If you would rather avoid that, open PowerShell per the following steps:

1. Open Task Manager.
2. Click "Run New Task".
3. In the dialogue box, type conhost powershell into the text box.
4. Make sure "Create this task with administrative privileges" is checked, then press "OK".

Then you should see a PowerShell prompt inside the "legacy" console host.

Getting PowerShell running inside the \"legacy\" console host (Windows 11 Pro ver. 25H2 shown here as an example)

Now, input the following command:

#> Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers | ForEach-Object `
   {
     $Package = $_
     if ($Package.Name -notmatch "Microsoft\.DesktopAppInstaller" -and
         $Package.Name -notmatch "Microsoft\.NET\.Native\.Framework" -and
         $Package.Name -notmatch "Microsoft\.NET\.Native\.Runtime" -and
         $Package.Name -notmatch "Microsoft\.StorePurchaseApp" -and
         $Package.Name -notmatch "Microsoft\.VCLibs" -and
         $Package.Name -notmatch "Microsoft\.WindowsStore" -and
         $Package.Name -notmatch "Microsoft\.XboxIdentityProvider") `
     {
       try `
       {
         $Package | Remove-AppxPackage -AllUsers
       }
       catch {}
     }
   }

What this magical incantation does is that it takes all packages found by Get-AppxPackage, checks them one-by-one to see if its the Microsoft Store app or its dependencies, and, if not, the command attempts removal via Remove-AppxPackage. The try and catch surrounding the latter suppress all the scary error messages chiding you for trying to remove non-removable system packages.

How the command should look in PowerShell

Once that's done, everything that's a store app (including Copilot) will be done away with from the system for good. You'll notice even Game Bar and other supposedly non-removable apps will be gone. If you want them back, you'll have to download them manually from the app store.

Clean as a whistle

Disabling Web Search in Start Menu

Third-Party guides usually teach you how to do that for a single user only. If you want to disable Web Search for all accounts, run these two reg add commands in an elevated Command Prompt or PowerShell:

#> reg add HKLM\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer
#> reg add HKLM\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer /v DisableSearchBoxSuggestions /t REG_DWORD /d 1

This will put i) the Explorer subkey under HKLM\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows in the registry and ii) the DisableSearchBoxSuggestions DWORD under Explorer. If you want the modification done for just the current user instead, change HKLM to HKCU.

Bye-bye, Bing!

Removing OneDrive

Every "ad" you see in stock Windows 11 is a notification from an app. Since OneDrive isn't a store app, you'll need to take care of it separately. In an elevated Command Prompt or PowerShell, run the following command:

#> C:\Windows\system32\OneDriveSetup.exe /uninstall

Once it's done, the OneDrive tray icon will disappear on its own, and the shortcut for it will also be gone from the Start Menu.

A Handy Tip

Windows has this thing called the "audit mode". The feature dates as far back as to Windows XP and is a nifty tool for when you need to install or customise a few things before setting up the first account.

To enter audit mode in a new install, just finish the initial installation process until you are shown the thing asking you for your region (it's called the "Out-of-Box Experience Wizard" or "OOBE Wizard" if you're curious). Press Ctrl + Shift + F3, then the system will reboot and take you straight to audit mode.

To enter audit mode in an existing install, run C:\Windows\system32\Sysprep\Sysprep.exe, then select "Enter System Audit Mode" and "Reboot" before pressing "OK".

Once you're there, you'll find yourself under the default "Administrator" account with a temporary profile. It's obviously not for general use, but if you want to do e.g. a registry hack to bypass online log-in, it's a useful thing to remember (though Shift + F10 for a Command Prompt is usually more preferable in this case).

Note that the only way to exit audit mode is to choose "Enter System Out-of-Box Experience" and reboot, which will force you to go through the entire OOBE song and dance whether your install is new or not. Also, under no circumstances should you choose "Generalize" unless you are prepping an install for a different machine or custom WIM files.

You have to buy your SSD at 5 times the price of one year ago but hey, shareholders are getting wealthier!

Im curious what would ease the burden or fear of leaving your current os?

Hey guys I have a question.

Recently upgraded to a new cpu ryzen 7 7800x3d and put the arctic freezer 360 in there but I see the temps going all over the place when I do small task or when I game and it seems like the fans or the cooling throttles up and down instead of going at a consitent speed. Kinda seems like the cooler turns down and then temps spikes it spikes and then it goes down so the temps spike again and it goes up. Very inconsistent.

I did a stress test and it was all stable and fine but very rarely am I going to go at a consistent cpu usage.

I heard something about under underclocking the cpu or going into bios and changing the fan speed.

What should I do?