Warning

This repo has not been updated since August 2021 and is likely very out of date.

CleanW11

Description

Various tweaks and modifications to clean up Windows and improve performance without removing any default functionality (excluding Xbox and Cortana). I've tried to avoid making any aesthetic changes aside from changing to dark mode, it should still feel like normal Windows 11, just better. Use at your own risk, all functions are experimental.

Making the Windows 11 installer

1. Go to UUP dump, this allows you to download the offical ISO directly from Microsoft servers
2. Go to latest dev channel build and click on the newest version of Windows 11 (10.0.22000.100 at time of writing)
3. Select your preferred language, click Next
4. Deselect all editions except Windows Pro, click Next
5. Select Download and convert to ISO, tick only Include updates, click Create download package
6. Extract all files from the downloaded .zip, and run the .cmd file to download the ISO
7. Use Rufus to make a bootable USB drive using the ISO, just use default settings

Install instructions

1. Boot from the USB drive and install Windows as per normal
2. Run Windows update, reboot, and repeat until there are no updates left
3. Install the latest GPU drivers and any other drivers you need that are not automatically installed by Windows update
4. Right click CleanW11.ps1 and run it in Powershell
5. Reboot, enjoy Windows 11

Optional: Remove Windows Defender

Not recommended unless you really know what you're doing. Normal methods of disabling Windows Defender used for Windows 10 have proven ineffective, so this script simply deletes it from the OS. Use at your own risk - this is obviously not reversable.

1. Place DeleteWinDefender.sh into the root of your Windows drive (ie. C:\)
2. Boot from an external Linux OS (ie. Ubuntu on a USB drive)
3. Navigate to your Windows drive
4. Execute DeleteWinDefender.sh with elevated privilege (ie. sudo ./DeleteWinDefender.sh)
5. Boot back into Windows