NTDEV

Hi! Long time no see, huh?

It’s been three years since my last State of the Windows article, which was about the inconsistencies in the Windows 11 user experience. Since then, Microsoft (and the world as a whole to be quite honest) has gotten through a lot of changes, especially since the introduction of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, and in our case, most importantly, Microsoft Copilot.

Until a few years ago, Windows was Microsoft’s crown jewel (or as they said in the Windows 7 commercial, the heartbeat of Microsoft), an impressive operating system that had the purpose to be a common platform for all devices. However, since the launch of Windows 11, which at first had the purpose to somewhat modernize the look and feel of the OS, it seems that priorities have changed quite a bit.

Today we are going to talk about the perceived drop of quality in Windows, from fundamental issues like critical bugs and incidents from the last 3 years to how everything’s become a Copilot upsell funnel mechanism.

So, without further ado, let’s go!

First, let’s talk about the current, show-stopping errors that appeared with the latest January 2026 update, and how to fix them.

1. PCs that wouldn’t shutdown – January 2026.

This is one of the bugs that I’ve actually encountered a few days ago at work – people would come in saying that their PCs would either act unresponsive after shutting down (as in, they wouldn’t start up again the next day), or it would reboot immediately after shutting down.

This issue was introduced with the January 2026 update, KB5073455 and it is more prominent on newer platforms, especially Intel’s Meteor Lake and Arrow Lake.

Reportedly this issue is caused by the System Guard Secure Launch, a virtualization-based security component which, as the name implies, protects the boot process by using DRTM, or Dynamic Root of Trust for Measurement.

More information about this technology can be found here.

Since last Patch Tuesday, Microsoft released a patch for this issue, KB5077797, which seems to solve the issues.

As a temporary workaround, users can shutdown their PCs using the Command Prompt, by entering shutdown /s /t 0. But this begs the question, why does the shutdown command work through this command which supposedly does the same thing, but not through the classic shutdown button?

2. Outlook “classic” can’t open pst files – january 2026

Once again, this month’s Patch Tuesday brought another major issue, which has the potential to affect one’s productivity in a big way.

If the KB5074109 is installed, applications can become unresponsive when accessing PST files stored on cloud storage. To put it simply, if you have your mail archive saved on OneDrive or Dropbox and are still using the classic Win32 Outlook (and not the WebView based one) it’s possible that you can’t access the file, since the application would become unresponsive.

Also, users with Outlook POP account profiles and profiles with PST files report that Outlook hangs and does not exit properly.

Up until yesterday, the only fixes were to either uninstall the update or to “use webmail”. Their words, not mine.

However, as of January 25th, Microsoft released the KB5078132 update, which should fix the issue.

Some other issues with the latest update include:

Apps that wouldn’t load (including system ones like Notepad), crashing with the error 0x803f8001.

Unbootable volumes – the infamous 0x7f BSOD which means that it can’t mount the disk partition to continue booting.

These are the most glaring issues that were introduced with the latest Windows update.

but as a whole, windows is a mess.

Since the introduction of 24H2, Microsoft had a scandal related to Windows almost every month.

Some of the most critical ones include:

WinRE wouldn’t recognize keyboard and mouse input after the October 2025 update

Task Manager wouldn’t close completely if KB5067036 was installed, meaning that whenever one opened a new taskmgr window a new instance would be launched.

RDP failures with 24H2/25H2 – once again, this is actually a critical issue that I’ve also encountered at work, and because of it we had to rollback a few PCs to 23H2 in order to have stable RDP connections.

Various devices like DACs or webcams not working after installing updates.

DRM video issues with the September 2025 update

Unfortunately, these are only some of the more prominent issues that occurred in the last year.

But wait, that’s not all!

Another ever-growing issue is the fact that Windows is bloated. And I’m not talking about the number of apps that are included in the OS or something that any script or custom OS could fix, but the fact that critical components are becoming so heavy that Microsoft has to develop workarounds in order to make them feel faster.

The prime example is Windows Explorer, which has become so sluggish that it has to be preloaded in order to make it faster, but even then it’s actually slower than previous versions of Windows!

How can one of the core UI elements of the OS become so heavy while not offering any noticeable quality-of-life improvement (apart from the introduction of tabs in Windows 11 22H2)?

Even Windows updates have become insanely big. Just take a look at the latest January 2026 update for Windows 11 23H2 and the one for 25H2.

More than 4 times bigger! And you probably know why. More on that later.

Last, but not least, the technical debt of Windows has become almost unbearable. 30+ years of Windows NT certainly adds up. And the fact that Microsoft can’t focus on a visual language or a software platform for once is daunting, especially since given the nature of Windows you have to support them all.

However, the biggest problem is that Windows is not only buggy. Sure, a piece of software of this magnitude can and will have its fair share of issues. Our use cases have gotten more complex and the software that we expect to fulfill those use cases have become more complex, more secure, more powerful, you name it. That being said…

windows is getting annoying.

Let’s tackle the elephant in the room.

LLMs (and AI as a whole) have the potential to be an outright revolution, changing the fabric of society and the way of our lives. Microsoft Copilot as well could be a brilliant idea if it is implemented correctly and has the power to completely transform Microsoft into an even bigger juggernaut, unlocking even more of that sweet shareholder value… if it’s done properly, that is.

Introduced in 2023, Microsoft Copilot is Microsoft’s chatbot based on OpenAI’s models after a $10 billion investment. Introduced in Windows 11 with the December 2023 Patch Tuesday, at first it was just a benign WebView application that could be easily removed. However, since 2024, Copilot and artificial intelligence have taken a critical role in Microsoft’s overall strategy, especially in areas like programming.

This shift also showed up in subsequent versions of Windows.

In Windows 11 24H2, the main highlight of the new update was the introduction of a suite of AI features, with the most important being Windows Recall.

The flagship feature of 24H2, Recall was intended to a be a “photographic memory” of sorts for your PC. This meant that, as you might have guessed, Windows Recall would take a snapshot of your screen every few seconds. Then, the information from those screenshots would be processed using local AI to make it searchable.

However, soon after it was introduced it became clear that it was a security nightmare. Early security researchers discovered that the data was stored in a largely unencrypted SQLite database, making it a goldmine for info-stealing malware. Not only that, but the early builds of Recall had no option to disable it. The backlash was so severe that Microsoft was forced to pull the feature just days before the Copilot+ PC launch in 2024, leaving a new generation of PCs without their flagship feature.

Applications like Signal and Brave implemented anti-Recall features that would prevent the app from taking screenshots.

While Microsoft would mitigate the main security concerns related to Recall, by making it uninstallable, encrypting its database and making it usable only if Windows Hello was enabled, the damage was already done.

Also, Windows Recall is one of the main reasons why Windows updates are so big these days, as each Windows update also introduces updates to the AI models included with the OS, even though you may not even have a Copilot+ PC that supports these features.

Apart from Recall, Windows has also suffered from an acute Copilot-ification.

The preinstalled browser (Edge) has Copilot.

The main text editor (Notepad) has Copilot.

There is also a dedicated Copilot app which is preinstalled and non-removable (in most cases)

The main photo viewer has a Copilot button which just opens the main app

The Settings application has Copilot in its search function (which doesn’t even work properly).

The Search application has Copilot (which only opens up the Copilot app) and needs a COMPLETE overhaul in my opinion.

Paint has Copilot

Office has Copilot (which is one of the few instances where Copilot and AI as a whole is genuinely useful if used correctly)

Also, judging by the latest Windows 11 builds, even Windows Explorer, which is already quite heavy in itself as we discussed earlier is getting Copilot!

With the Copilot epidemic also came the complete death of the “offline” Windows.

Perhaps the most nagging change since 2023 is the slow death of the local account. Microsoft has spent the last three years systematically closing every “backdoor” that allowed users to set up Windows without a Microsoft Account.

Methods like OOBE.exe /bypassNRO or a@a.com as the email for the account have been “fixed”, meaning that it becomes harder and harder to use a local account with each subsequent update.

a vision with a crumbling foundation

Looking back at the last three years, the “State of Windows” is one of extreme ambition built on a crumbling foundation. Microsoft is trying to build a futuristic AI skyscraper, but they are building it on top of a basement filled with 30-year-old technical debt and a ground floor that can’t even handle a shutdown command properly.

Unfortunately, the issue that plagued Windows since the dawn of time has only aggravated recently. Windows 11 is a mixture of old and new technologies that are glued together, with decades of legacy code that simply refuses to die (because if it did a lot of corporate costumers would complain, and whether we like it or not they are paying big cash for support to Microsoft).

Also, it tries to have a “modern” UI that unfortunately not only is inconsistent, but also it’s too heavy for its own good, being just a lipstick on a bloated old pig.

Last, but certainly not least, it is full of AI features that most people didn’t ask for, some are even actively feared (see Recall) and are also quite lacking in polish and usefulness.

I feel like a good analogy of the current situation with Windows is this picture which was shown in an internal presentation regarding the performance and reliability of pre-reset Longhorn

Until Microsoft stops treating Windows as an “AI innovation platform” of sorts and starts treating it as the stable, reliable tool it was always meant to be, the user experience will continue to feel like a battle between the person sitting at the desk and the company that built the desk.

Thank you for you attention.

Did you find this article interesting? Writing these deep dives (once every few years ) takes a lot of time (and caffeine).Also it would be nice if I would get a proper domain for this page.

[Support my work!]

You pretty much can’t get any lower than this.

Based on tiny11 core, nano11 pushes things even further, by removing even more fluff like Windows Hello packages, unnecessary drivers, .NET precompiled assembly, IME components, wallpapers and more. While it is NOT suitable for daily use, it is great for quick and dirty testbeds or VM environments.

It could also be of great help for legacy machines.

nano11 : NTDEV, Microsoft : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

ntdevlabs/nano11: Script to build possibly the most trimmed-down Windows 11 experience.

BEFORE YOU TRY NANO11:

This is an extreme experimental script designed for creating a quick and dirty development testbed. It removes everything possible to get the smallest footprint, including the Windows Component Store (WinSxS), core services, and much more.

The resulting OS is not serviceable. This means you cannot add languages, drivers, or features, and you will not receive Windows Updates. It is intended only for testing, development, or embedded use in VMs where a minimal, static environment is required.

What is removed?

The nano11.ps1 script is extremely aggressive. It removes:

• All Bloatware Apps: Clipchamp, News, Weather, Xbox, Office Hub, Solitaire, etc.
• Core System Components:
  •  Windows Component Store (WinSxS)
  •  Windows Update (and its services)
  •  Windows Defender (and its services)
  • Most Drivers (keeps VGA, Net, Storage only)
  •  All IMEs (Asian languages)
  • Search, BitLocker, Biometrics, and Accessibility features
  • Most system services (including Audio)
• Other Components:
  • Microsoft Edge & OneDrive
  • Internet Explorer & Tablet PC Math

You can get nano11 builder from here: ntdevlabs/nano11: Script to build possibly the most trimmed-down Windows 11 experience.

Here is a tech demo showcasing the creation process:

If you feel like you don’t want to use the script, you can download a pre-processed image – the one built in the video!

nano11 : NTDEV, Microsoft : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

If this project has helped you, please consider showing your support! A small donation helps me dedicate more time to projects like this. Thank you!

Patreon | PayPal | Ko-fi

Tiny11 builder just got better!

I know it’s been a while, but a new update for tiny11 builder is finally here, simplifying the process a bit while also tackling the new additions to the Windows experience, namely Copilot, the new Outlook and Teams (for some reason).

This update now removes Copilot, the new Outlook client (which IMO absolutely sucks btw) and Teams. It also fixes the odd registry mount/unmount errors by changing the approach to how it removes scheduled tasks.

Last, but not least, images should come out much smaller, as now we use Recovery (LZX) compression instead of Fast (XPRESS) (keep in mind that this takes a while and it uses A LOT of RAM, so be patient).

Here’s what’s removed in the standard tiny11 builder script:

What is removed:

• Clipchamp
• News
• Weather
• Xbox (although Xbox Identity provider is still here, so it should be possible to be reinstalled)
• GetHelp
• GetStarted
• Office Hub
• Solitaire
• PeopleApp
• PowerAutomate
• ToDo
• Alarms
• Mail and Calendar
• Feedback Hub
• Maps
• Sound Recorder
• Your Phone
• Media Player
• QuickAssist
• Tablet PC Math
• Edge
• OneDrive
• Copilot
• New Outlook Client

Tiny11 core builds also brings in the same fixes as the standard release. Keep in mind, tiny11 core is for testing purposes only!

Tiny11 builder is compatible with all Windows 11 SKUs, all languages (at least in theory), for both x64 and arm64!

Tested with Windows 11 24H2, 25H2 as well as Canary Build 27934.

As always, feedback is much appreciated! Also, I apologize for not being quite as active as I once was, but fear not, you are being heard!

Just like with previous releases, tiny11 builder is on github, at ntdevlabs/tiny11builder: Scripts to build a trimmed-down Windows 11 image.

I strongly recommend creating your own image instead of downloading one of the older ISOs, as those are becoming quite out of date.

Thank you for reading this article. I hope you found it helpful and informative. If you would like to see more content like this and support me and this website, you can do so through any of these links: http://paypal.me/ntdev2, http://ko-fi.com/ntdev or http://patreon.com/ntdev.

UPDATE 2: Introducing nano11! You can find out more about this here: Introducing nano11 – all the essentials, none of the fluff. – NTDEV

You can also download a pre-built image using this link: nano11 : NTDEV, Microsoft : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

UPDATE 1: All existing builds of tiny11 have been superseded by the tiny11 builder. Now you can make your own tiny11 images!

I strongly recommend creating your own image instead of downloading one of the older ISOs, as those are becoming quite out of date.

https://github.com/ntdevlabs/tiny11builder

Let me know how it goes!

We’ve all been there: you have decided to give tiny10/tiny11 a try, but you are confused about all the variants and names and links and whatnot.

Let’s fix that! In this article you’ll find everything that you need to know about every available tiny10 and tiny11 build, complete with official links and for whom is every build made.

THE LATEST RELEASES

Tiny11 2311 – tiny11 2311 : Microsoft/NTDEV : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

This is the latest release of tiny11, which is fully serviceable and updateable.

It is designed for anyone who wants to try Windows 11, without all the excessive fluff of a standard installation. What’s best is the fact that if you need any component from the standard Windows 11 that isn’t included with tiny11, you can easily install it back using Winget or Add Optional Features or Microsoft Store.

Tiny11 core beta 1 – tiny11 core beta 1 : NTDEV, Microsoft : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

This is a more “back to the basics” approach to making a smaller Windows image, having a lot of components removed, including Windows Component Store and Windows Defender.

It is NOT a replacement for tiny11! It has a different purpose: to be a quick-and-dirty testbed or development platform.

Also, make sure to download network drivers BEFORE installing tiny11 core, as it doesn’t have any network drivers integrated by default

Tiny10 23H2 (x64) – tiny10 23H2 : NTDEV : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

This is the latest tiny10 release for x64 machines, based on Windows 10 LTSC 2021.

It is for everyone who needs a really lightweight yet still dependable operating system, being fully serviceable while still being able to run on low end hardware.

Tiny10 2303 x86 – Tiny10 : NTDEV : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Tiny10 2303 was released exclusively for x86 (32-bit) devices, and it is an ideal option for very old or low end devices that deserve to get a new breath of life.

LEGACY BUILDS

If you’re wondering about tiny11 23H2, it has been discontinued due to a bug that prevented it from being serviceable, which kind of defeated the purpose of the release. It has been replaced by tiny11 2311, as shown above

The original tiny11 builds- tiny11 : NTDEV : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Tiny11 b1 (b standing for beta) was released in February 2023 and has been a smashing success. However, it has been superseded by tiny11 core, having similar functionality while being based on the new 23H2 platform.

Tiny11 b2 (no sysreq for bypassing the system requirements at setup time) has the full component store kept intact, and it has been superseded by tiny11 2311.

Legacy tiny10 builds – tiny10 – legacy builds : NTDEV/Microsoft : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

These are the builds of tiny10 that started it all, released way back in 2020. They are based on Windows 10 LTSC 2019, and are VERY barebones, tiny10 b3 being able to fit on a CD!

However, they are perfect for very old PCs and for experiments that require little amounts of space and processing power. 

Tiny10 b3 is only for 32-bit systems, while b4 is only for x64.

Well, that’s pretty much it! These are the official links and that’s the current offering of

Thank you for reading this article. I hope you found it helpful and informative. If you would like to see more content like this and support me and this website, you can do so through any of these links: http://paypal.me/ntdev2, http://ko-fi.com/ntdev or http://patreon.com/ntdev.

Remember when Windows used to be a dependable and straight-to-the-point operating system? Well, it still is pretty dependable, but if the system requirements of Windows 11 tell us something, it’s that Windows has become quite big. This is somewhat to be expected, as there are lots more new and advanced technologies in Windows 11 than say, Windows XP (obviously). But do you really need every single thing that Windows has to offer by default? Wouldn’t it be nice for the user to choose what they want, when they want?

Well, if you follow my work, you might have seen that this is actually quite possible. In case you didn’t know, in the recent years I released every once-in-a-while what I call tiny10 and tiny11 which, as their name suggests, are quite a bit smaller images compared to the standard release of Windows.

How is that even possible? Doesn’t Windows break when you delete stuff from it? Isn’t everything interconnected and protected from removal?

Actually, Windows is much more modular than you think.

Since Windows Vista, Microsoft implemented what is now known as Component-Based Servicing, which allows the user/OEM/Microsoft to modify whatever components they want to include in their image. This is how you can add features like Hyper-V or .NET 3.5 only if necessary. It’s also the mechanism that allows upgrading from different SKUs, like Home to Pro.

Now, we’re going to leverage the use of this powerful tool and show you to create your very own tiny11, tailored to your own needs.

I will try to explain the reasoning behind every single step so that you can decide whether if you want to do it or not.

So, without further ado, let’s go!

but first, let’s choose our tools.

NTLite (Download – NTLite)

If you ever tried doing a lightweight/modified Windows image, you might have heard of NTLite. This is by far the most powerful (at least according to my experience) Windows image customization tool. The only issue is that its free version is severely limited compared to the full, paid version. However, it is a pretty good starting point for removing some of the most basic stuff like unnecessary apps or doing things like integrating updates and creating unattended answer files quickly.

This will be our first layer of customization.

MSMG Toolkit (Downloads (msmgtoolkit.in))

Another very popular Windows customization utility is MSMG toolkit. While it isn’t as user friendly and complete as NTLite, it’s of tremendous help in removing what the free version of NTLite doesn’t allow us to.

This will be our second layer of customization.

(optional) Manual removals

While utilities do their fair share of work, you can still gain quite a lot of free space by removing redundancies.

step 1 – getting the windows image

First of all, we have to download Windows. You can do this either by downloading it using Microsoft’s Media Creation Tool, or by downloading the latest updated image using UUPDump or UUP Media Creator.

For the purpose of this article we’re going to use UUPDump.

1. Go to uup.ee
2. If you want to download the latest stable Windows 11 release, select “Latest Public Release build”.
   
   If you have a standard computer, select x64. If you have a Windows on Arm device (like Surface X or a laptop with a Qualcomm CPU), select arm64.
3. Select the Windows build that you want to download.
   
4. Select your language.
   
5. Select what SKU (edition) you want to use.
   
6. Leave everything as default and press “Create download package”
   
   You will see that you will get a .zip archive
7. Unzip the archive and run the downloader
   
   Note: you might see a SmartScreen notification when you open this file. Click “more info” and then “Run anyway”.
   
   You might also get a security warning, and you have to press “r” to allow the script to run.
8. Wait.
   This might take a while, depending on various factors like the CPU speed as well as the internet speed.
   What the script is doing now is that it downloads the various bits and pieces that form the Windows image and combines them into a unified image. This is also what Windows Update does when updating Windows to a new build (or “feature update”)
   
9. Done!
   If everything went well, you should be able to see a Windows ISO, like the one in the picture below. Notice that it has over 7GB.
   

Step 2 – cutting the fluff

After you downloaded the Windows ISO, you have to either mount the disc image and copy its contents to a new folder, or extract it like an archive using 7zip or your favorite archival software. In the end, you should have something like this.

Now we’re ready to go!

We’ll start by using NTlite.

Open NTlite and on the upper left corner, select Add, then Image Directory.

Then, select the folder where you extracted the Windows 11 ISO.

After that, double-click on your preferred SKU and wait about a minute for the WIM image to mount.

When the image is successfully mounted, you should see the sidebar being populated with a plethora of options.

Now, go to Remove – Components

Let’s begin!

Open the Apps Section. You will see a long list of apps. Let’s discuss each one of them so you can decide what to keep and what to not keep. I will also put a for apps that I recommend being kept, for apps that I deem removable and for those that are up to you.

1. Clipchamp – this is Microsoft’s web-based video editor. It’s quite limited in its free version and there are MUCH better options available.
2. Cortana – as part of the Microsoft Copilot launch, Cortana was discontinued, even though its app was not removed from Windows. It’s as useful as a paperweight.
3. Dev Home – introduced with the latest 23H2 update, Dev Home has some pretty cool features for developers, like integration with GitHub or some nifty Widgets. If you remove it, however, you can install it back from Microsoft Store.
4. Feedback Hub – unless you plan on being a Windows Insider, you can safely uninstall this app.
5. Get Help – the name basically tells it all. You can find much better information online than on this application.
6. HEVC extensions – these are used for decoding H.265 video, and it uses less than 5MB.
7. Mail and Calendar – these 2 apps (which are basically the same app package with two functionalities) will soon be discontinued by Microsoft and replaced with the new Outlook app.
8. Microsoft Engagement Framework – if you plan on using applications from the Store, you might want to consider keeping this application, as it allows for features like A/B testing and sending feedback. However, if that’s not your cup of tea, it can be removed safely.
9. Microsoft Family – Parental controls for Windows. If you don’t have children that require supervising, you can safely remove this.
10. Microsoft News – once again, the name is self-explanatory, it’s just… news.
11. Microsoft People – this is a relic from the old Windows 8/10 days, back when Microsoft put a lot more emphasis on social features. It’s basically just a stub nowadays, and it doesn’t really do anything
12. Microsoft Photos – if you plan on using other apps as your default photo viewer, you can safely remove it.
13. Microsoft Solitaire Collection – I mean… do I need to say anything here?
14. Sticky Notes – a useful tool, and I usually keep it in my tiny11 releases.
15. Microsoft Teams – this is actually NOT the Microsoft Teams that most of us are familiar with, but the “home” variant that Microsoft tried to push back when Windows 11 was launched.
16. Microsoft To Do
17. Movies and TV – this is used for renting, you guessed it… movies and TV shows from Microsoft Store. It’s been pretty neglected in the recent years, having the old Windows 10 design language.
18. MSN Weather – Another webview application that recently also started showing… news! On the weather app… make that make sense.
19. Notepad – even though it can be removed, I strongly advise against it.
20. Office – it’s just a wrap for the online Office applications.
21. Outlook for Windows – this is the successor to the also included Mail and Calendar application bundle. If you don’t plan on using it, you can remove it safely.
22. Paint – in the recent months Paint has become better than ever, and it is also useful as a last-resort image viewer!
23. Power Automate – this is an application used to do automations, similar to how the Shortcuts app works on iOS or IFTTT.
24. Quick Assist – do you remember the old Remote Assistance application from Windows XP? No? And even if you do, did you ever use it?
25. Raw Image Extension – this allows you to view .RAW/.DNG files in the Photos application. Just like with the HEVC extension it’s very small and doesn’t affect everyday usage in any way.
26. Snipping Tool – an incredibly useful tool for taking screenshots, and recently it has also been updated with screen recording!
27. Store Experience Host – this application is critical to the proper functioning of the Microsoft Store, and should not be removed.
28. Tips (Get Started) – this app has been recently deprecated, and will soon be removed by Microsoft itself, so why don’t you take the head start?
29. Web Media Extensions – useful for opening .webp files
30. Windows Calculator – you wouldn’t remove an application that has been a staple of Microsoft Windows since 1985, would you?
31. Windows Camera – this is used to take pictures with your webcam. Removing it does not mean that you can’t use your webcam anymore.
32. Windows Clock – it’s a clock. It also has Pomodoro timers!
33. Windows Defender – well, this is a tricky one. If you are absolutely certain that you don’t need an antivirus, you can remove it. However, in general, I strongly encourage you to keep it.
34. Windows Maps – it’s been pretty neglected in the recent years, and by the end of this year support for offline maps will also be removed, which adds further uncertainty to its future.
35. Windows Media Player – formerly known as Groove Music, this is the new Windows Media Player application that Microsoft introduced in Windows 11. If you plan on having another default media player, you can safely remove it.
36. Windows Terminal – it’s a great extension of the classic Command Prompt, with nifty features like tabs, transparency and much more.
37. Windows Voice Recorder – unless you plan on using your computer as a glorified notes recorder, you can safely remove it
38. Windows Web Experience Pack – this is used for the Widgets panel
39. WindowsAppRuntime.1.3 – this is used for some of the new Windows App SDK applications (formerly known as WinUI 3)
40. Xbox* – if you plan on playing Xbox games or games that require the Xbox infrastructure, like Minecraft, it’s best to keep it. However, if you want to remove the Xbox functionality but to be able to enable it back later, you MUST NOT delete the Xbox Identity Provider service!
41. Your Phone – unless you plan on using the Your Phone app for notification mirroring from your phone to your PC, among other things, you can delete this app.

Now that we’re done with the Apps, we’re going to go onto our next section of interest.

In general, I strongly recommend leaving the Drivers and Hardware support sections as they are, since it’s really not worth the hassle of having an unbootable system for some MBs of space.

If you want your ISO to be able to upgrade older versions of Windows, leave the ISO image section untouched as well.

Now, let’s go to the Language Section.

Here, there are a few things that can be removed safely, as long as you are not actively using them.

If you are NOT planning on using Windows in Asian languages, you can safely remove support for Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), Japanese, Korean as well as the Input Method Editor (IME)

Now, let’s go to the Multimedia section.

While there aren’t many available options (a limitation of the free tier of NTLite), we can still remove some things, such as:

1. APX speaker and microphone driver – removing this should not affect the audio experience in any way.
2. Wallpapers – you can safely remove the Windows wallpapers. If you still want to have the default Windows wallpaper, untick only the Wallpapers (Themes) option.
   
3. Windows Personalization Themes – this only removes the preinstalled Windows themes, but does not remove the dark/light mode functionality or the ability to add your own themes.
4. Windows TIFF filter (OCR) – this, as the name implies, removes the ability to do OCR (Optical Character Recognition) on .tiff files.
5. Xbox (core) – this removes the Xbox Identity Provider, so it’s best to keep it.

Now, let’s go to Network.

Here, there is only one feature worth looking at:

1. Internet Explorer – although Internet Explorer has been discontinued, there are still applications that use its engine as base for their webview functionality. One prominent example is Roblox. I don’t use Roblox, you’ll most likely be fine removing it.
   

Now that we’re done with Network, we can go to the System Apps section, where we have a bit more to talk about.

Since there are so many applications and most of them have important functionality, we’re only going to be focusing on those that are removable:

1. Add Folder Suggestions Dialog – from what I could gather, this was used in older versions of Windows 10 to suggest, well… adding folders in the Library folder, but in a Windows 10-like UI. Easily removable.
2. App Resolver – this app is so old and deprecated that it hasn’t been updated since Windows 10 build 19640.
3. AsyncTextService – used for “additional extensions for the People and Maps applications”… whatever that means, but since we removed those two apps, we can also remove this without any hassle.
4. Call – this is exactly what it says, it’s a phone UI for Windows. So, unless you are trying to create a Windows image for say, a Lumia 950, you can delete this.
5. Content Delivery Manager – this is the app that brings you “beloved” features like Candy Crush or Spotify on the Start Menu.
6. Eye Control – this is for some accessibility hardware that allows you to control your PC using only your eyes. Cool idea, but I’m pretty certain it’s a very niche one.
7. File Explorer (Legacy) – this is the old and hidden Windows 10 File Explorer app that has very limited functionality.
   
8. File picker – related to the UWP File Explorer.
9. Microsoft Edge DevTools Client – this are the Developer Tools for the old Microsoft Edge (not the current one that is Chromium based).
10. Microsoft family features – parental controls
11. Network Connectivity Status Indicator – the name is pretty self-explanatory
12. PinningConfirmationDialog – in Windows 10, this was used for asking the user if they want to pin a live tile of a certain app on the Start Menu
13. Windows Barcode Preview – unless you have a POS (Point of Service), you can remove this
14. Xbox Game UI – if you plan on keeping the full Xbox experience by default, you should leave this on

Now, we can go on the last section – System.

Here, we also don’t have a lot that we can remove, other than:

1. . NET assembly cache – this helps us make the final image a bit smaller.
   
2. 57-bit linear addressing – this is a new kind of kernel that is only used for devices that support la57 and 5-level paging, which as of now are only high end server CPUs like Intel Xeon and AMD EPYC.
3. Application Virtualization (App-V) – “an application virtualization and application streaming solution from Microsoft.”

And we’re done!

With the “components” section of NTLite, that is.

Now, we are going to do some optimizations before we remove some more things using MSMG, by going to the Configure – Settings section.

There are literally hundreds of settings that can be modified from here, but here are the ones that I use when I make my own images:

With this, we should be done with the NTLite part of our configuration. To apply all the changes, go Finish – Apply.

There, select “Remove nonessential editions” and at the “Reapply tasks across editions” section, click on Configure – Settings. This ensures that the options to bypass TPM and the RAM and storage requirements are applied in WinPE, so you can do a clean install on any PC, even though it doesn’t have the necessary system requirements to run Windows 11.

Then, click “Process” and wait for a bit. You might be asked to disable Windows Defender to speed up the process.

After this is done, you can close NTLite.

step 3 – cutting the fluff even further

Now, we’re going to use MSMG toolkit to clean up the image even further.

After you downloaded the archive, unzip it. Then, you have to copy/move the contents of the Windows ISO that we just modified inside the DVD folder of the MSMG Toolkit.

Now, we can start the toolkit, by going to the root of the folder and opening the start.cmd script. Once again, you might get a SmartScreen prompt.

When you open the script, you’ll notice that it’s text-based, but don’t worry, the interface is pretty easy to use.

After pressing any key, select [1] – Source.

Here, once again, press hit 1, for the first option [1] – Select Source from Folder

Then, select your Windows SKU.

When asked this question, hit yes.

When asked to mount the Windows Setup Boot Image and Windows Recovery Image, press N.

The Windows image will then mount.

After the image is mounted, press any key and you will be returned to the main screen. Now, press 3, for the Remove menu

Then, press 1.

Then, press C, for the Compatibility screen . Then, press A.

If everything done right, you should have dashes (‘-‘) instead of pluses (‘+’) next to each category, like above,

Then, press X, and then 1 to go into the “Select Windows Components” list.

Here, you will have a list of categories, similar to NTLite.

Here we go again.

You will see in every page something similar to this:

You will have to type the number of the option that you want removed. You can also type more options at the same time, with a space between them.

So, without further ado, let’s go!

[1] – Internet

• Edge Chromium – if you want to remove Edge you can, but you will lose some features like Copilot. You can, however, install it back using Winget
• Edge WebView – it’s recommended that you keep it, since there are more and more applications that depend on it for their webview functionality.

[2] – Multimedia

• Games Explorer – this is a relic from the old Vista days, where you would see all your games in one place in Windows Explorer
• Lock Screen Background
• Screen Savers
• Sound themes
• Speech recognition – unless you are using it for accessibility reasons, you can safely remove it
• Wallpapers
• Windows Media Player – this is the “Legacy” Windows Media Player application, and there are still a few applications that require the use of it.
• Windows Photo Viewer – this is the old Windows 7 Photo Viewer
• WinSAT – this was used for the “Windows Experience Index” feature which was deprecated in Windows 8.1

[3] – Network

• Wallet Service – this is a component of the Microsoft Pay feature introduced back in the Lumia days
• Windows Mail

[4] – Privacy

• Customer Experience Improvement Program (CEIP) – telemetry.
• Windows Insider Preview – if you are not planning to enroll into the program, you can remove this feature

[5] – Remoting

• OneDrive Desktop Client – if you don’t plan on using OneDrive, you can delete this

[6] – System

• Steps Recorder – this feature has been deprecated in recent versions of Windows and will be removed in the future anyway.

[7] – System Apps

• Map Control
• Microsoft Edge – this is the old Edge (Spartan) browser that has been replaced.
• Retail Demo Content
• Safely Remove Device – unless you have an eGPU or a device like Surface Book with a detachable GPU
• Skype ORTC – this does not affect the ability to use Skype
• Windows Mixed Reality
• Xbox Callable User Interface

[8] – Apps

This one offers basically the same list as NTLite, so if you already removed what you wanted, there should be no need to do anything here.

After you selected everything that you want to remove, press X.

Then, press 2. MSMG will start removing the components that you selected.

If everything went as it should, you should see the image above.

Then, go back to the main page, and type 6, to enter the “Apply” menu.

After that, type 1, wait for the image to be cleaned up, then type 2, so that the new image is saved.

As you can see, we managed to get the compressed (!) image a whopping 2GBs smaller!

After this, you can exit MSMG, by going to the main screen and pressing X.

Now, we can perform some final touches.

step 4 – performing final touches.

Right now, our image (install.wim) is about 4.4GB. But we can go even smaller by compressing the image even further.

Apart from .wim, there is also another method of storing Windows images, called .esd, which is quite smaller.

What we’re going to do now is we’re going to export the .iso image so that we can put in on a USB drive or burn it on a DVD.

For this… we’re going back to NTLite.

Mount the image that you just created with MSMG (in the DVD folder).

Then, go to the Finish – Apply section.

For the image format, select ESD, and at the bottom select “Create ISO”. You will be asked to provide a name for the ISO. Then, press, “Proceed” up top.

The compression process is rather CPU-intensive, and might take a while.

Aaaaand we’re done!

We have successfully created a lightweight Windows 11 image!

Depending on your configuration, the image should have around 9-12GB when installed (without pagefile).

what’s next?

Well, believe it or not, there are ways of making things even smaller. However, as of now, this is basically as lightweight an image can be without breaking anything.

In an upcoming blog post I will write about how you can go even lower by using some more unorthodox methods.

final thoughts

As you can see, Windows has a lot of redundant applications kept most likely for the sake of keeping compatibility with whatever application was unfortunate enough to use them.

It is also a lot more modular than one might think, and it’s definitely not the monolithic beast that it is usually reported.

As a matter of fact, almost everything that has been done today can be done using only Microsoft tools like DISM, like I once did in my script-based tiny11 builder a while back. However, using apps like NTLite and MSMG is a much more user-friendly way of doing such customizations.

Thanks for taking your time in reading this!

I’m trying to publish stuff a bit more often here (if the feedback is positive, of course), and I even changed the old domain from ntdotdev.wordpress.com to a paid one, ntdev.blog so that it is a bit more easier to remember and access.

If you found this useful and want to see more articles like these and want to show your gratitude, consider supporting me and this website through any of these links: http://paypal.me/ntdev2, http://ko-fi.com/ntdev or http://patreon.com/ntdev.

Once again thank you for your time!

Hello and happy new year!

It’s 2023, and Windows 11 is finally a mature operating system that most people would be happy to use. Sun Valley has finally arrived, and it’s all about a long overdue reinvestment in design under Panos Panay’s leadership. But is it enough?
Let’s take a look.

For the purpose of this research, I used Windows 11 build 25267, which as of now is the latest Insider Dev build.

Layer 1: Windows 11/WinUI3 elements

Windows 11 brought in a new design language, putting an emphasis on rounded corners and gradients and a new transparent background called Mica, which aims to replace the old Acrylic design.

If one would compare Windows 10 applications to Windows 11, it would notice that for the first time in years (decades for some like Notepad), their UI has been significantly redesigned to be in line with the new design language.

Another fundamental change in Windows 11 is the location of the Start button which, after 27 years, has been moved from the left-hand corner to the center of the screen, in line with the now-cancelled Windows 10X.

Some elements that have changed compared to Windows 10 are the context menus, the Explorer (which finally has tabs!) and the Settings app.

Last but not least, the Start Menu has been redesigned, and as a result the Live Tiles introduced with Windows 8 are gone, for better or for worse.

Another great improvement to Windows 11 is the fact that even some elements that are rarely shown to users (especially casual ones) have been updated, like the firewall prompts (which haven’t been updated since Vista!) and many Metro UI (including FINALLY the volume slider) have been replaced.

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Last, but not least, the boot screen has been updated to the new Windows logo, as well as the new WinUI loading circle, which replaces the dated spinning dots.

As we can see, we definitely see a major improvement in design consistency in Windows 11. Most of the common UI elements have been updates, and with the introduction of WinUI 3 developers can also integrate these elements in their own apps more easily.

Now, let’s dig deeper.

Layer 2: Windows 10 elements

Well, first of all, a non-design element but definitely one that it is common with Windows 10: they have the same kernel version, 10.0

Some apps like Mail and Calendar haven’t been updated with the new Windows 11 design guidelines, but they are reportedly going to be replaced in 2023 with a new application codenamed Project Monarch.

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• 

Some Settings elements still haven’t been updated to the new design, like when doing changes to the user profile.

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The Windows Defender UI also hasn’t been updated, and as a result it looks considerably more dated than the rest of the UI.

Cortana is also surprisingly still a thing in Windows 11, and it is not as thoroughly integrated with the OS (remember the time when Cortana was guiding you in the OOBE?).

As we can see, there still are quite a few Windows 10 remains scattered throughout the OS, but these aren’t really eyesores, apart from the Windows Defender app in my opinion, which looks quite off.

Now onto the juicy stuff.

Layer 3: Windows 8

Looks like the curse of Metro is still with us, even though in a few days Microsoft will stop support for Windows 8.1.

Unfortunately, we still have plenty of Windows 8 elements throughout the OS, like the Autorun prompt or the error that appears when one runs an incompatible program.

These are some of the biggest eyesores of the OS, and it definitely gives Windows a half-baked, inconsistent feeling.

Other elements that are quite an eyesore are the loading screens, which although they have been updated with WinUI3, their Metro counterparts are still prevalent throughout the OS.

Another Metro element is the Windows Recovery Environment, which looks almost exactly the same as when it was first introduced in Windows 8.

Also, just like in Windows 8, the copy screen is still the same.

All in all, while there has been a notable progress in de-Metro-ifying Windows 11, some important elements are still here.

Layer 4: Windows 7

While Windows 10 had most of the inbox apps identical to those from Windows 7, Windows 11 has improved significantly this aspect. Most of the applications like Notepad, Paint, the Snipping Tool and others have been redesigned to be in line with the new design guidelines that Windows 11 proposes. However, since this is Microsoft we’re talking about, some elements haven’t been updated.

The Remote Desktop Connection program is still exactly the same as it was 14 years ago, complete with Aero icons and skeuomorphic common controls.

Windows Media Player 12 is also still here, although it has been deprecated in favor of a new Media Player application.

Just like in Windows 10, some file dialogs also have Windows 7 designs.

Onto the fifth layer: Windows Vista

The cornerstone of modern Windows, Vista brought in many new features to the OS. One of these is the introduction of the Aero Wizards, that are still with us in Windows 11 to the same extent as they were in Windows 10.

The beloved Control Panel is still here, although most of the common features now redirect to the Settings app.

One last Vista oddity is the search program, which looks absolutely lovely when paired with the modern design of the File Explorer.

Layer 6: Windows XP

Just like with Windows 10, the driver copy screen hasn’t been updated, so it still has the Windows XP icons.

Now, onto layer 7: Windows 2000

Once again, just like before, things like MMC, winver and the Windows Installer are almost exactly the same, apart from the fact that the Installer had its icons replaced for the first time in 20 years!

Now, onto the eight layer: Windows 95/NT 4.0

While the Start Menu has been moved from the far left to the center for the first time, everything else is still the same.

Just like in Windows 10, elements like the folder options, the mouse settings and many other UI elements have stayed basically the same for the last 27 years.

And finally, layer 9: Windows 3.1

The ability to choose icons that are more than 30 years old is still here, with the inclusion of the very important and absolutely critical to the good function of the OS moricons.dll

And last, but certainly not least, in the ODBC Data Sources utility there is a Windows 3.1-styled folder selection window!

Conclusion

As we can see, while there are definite improvements in Windows 11’s design consistency, they are somewhat superficial (but still more thorough than those that were introduced with Windows 10), and there still is plenty of room for improvement. However, compared to Windows 10, at least most of the “casual” UI is somewhat consistent.

In 2023 Windows 11 will reportedly get 3 of the new “moment” updates, which are supposed to bring in new features and UI fixes. Not only that, but Microsoft is thought to be working on decoupling the UI elements from the rest of the OS even further, so we should probably see more improvements more quickly.

Thank you for your attention.

Hi there, today I’m going to tell you how one of the most interesting periods of my life started. And also, how a period of despair can bring something good.

One year ago, the world was on the brink of collapse. We were in a period of uncertainty and isolation like never before. In just a few days, from a normal high school student busy with homework and competitions and whatnot, I became a literal couch potato, who was watching The Office for the third time in six months and went to sleep at 6AM. Of course, at that time I was also watching a lot of YouTube, seeing all sorts of tech videos. One of my favorite kinds are the “upgrading every version of Windows” type. I think they are very relaxing and also show just how flexible and backwards-compatible Windows really is. So, I thought that there must be someone who has already made something similar to my first video, which is upgrading every build, not version of Windows, but I couldn’t find any. So I started thinking about making one by myself. But me, on YouTube? That would be so cringe. I had a secondary channel on my google account, but I have never used it before (I don’t even remember why I even made in the first place 5 years ago). Also, what name to put? I’m not really good at naming things. So, at first I decided to leave this sort of thing for other people.

Why did I change my mind? Well, the reason is kind of hilarious. In the middle of April I saw a video on YouTube about a remix of Dua Lipa’s Hallucinate song combined with the theme song of BBC News. And the author said that it’s been made during lockdown. So, seeing the creativity of other people during this time, I also wanted to make something interesting.

And that’s how I started making my first video. At first, my channel was supposed to be a one-act show: just this video and that’s it. (that’s why I also chose NTDEV as name, basically at random, because I saw it on MajorSky17’s videos about beta versions of Windows, and I thought it was cool). So, I installed OBS and started recording my screen. Basically this is what I’ve been doing for about two weeks or so. I had no idea how idea how to edit a video, let alone how to make one with 200 hours of footage watchable. But I kept learning as I went along. Also during this time I have drank Coca-Cola and ate chocolate like never before. Last, but not least, I found out that listening to music really helps you get things done! So I kept recording and recording, almost from early in the morning till late at night. This definitely took a toll on my laptop, as after finishing the second part of the saga (where I upgraded every Windows 10 build up to that point), I had noticed that the base of my laptop had warped slightly from the heat. But I’m sure that recording 400 hours of footage while doing pretty intensive workloads takes a toll on any device.

So, I have a video, now what?

After I uploaded the video to YouTube, it was obvious that I wouldn’t have instant fame and success, but just seeing my video on YouTube gave a feeling of pride and excitement like never before. A few days later, I finally made courage to promote my video somewhere, by posting a link of it on r/windows on Reddit, with pretty good success.

Now, what’s the deal with this Twitter stuff?

Prior to creating my channel, I haven’t really used Twitter (although I had an account), and the reason I started using it after I posted my first video is pretty hilarious, too. About a month after posting my first video, I started searching my name on Twitter as a joke (I was pretty confident that there’s no way people would have heard about my little 1000-views video). But I was wrong. I noticed that John Lam from Microsoft had tweeted about my video, and I wanted to respond to his tweet. At first, I actually replied to his tweet with the account having my real name, but then I thought “wait, why would he trust me in saying that I’m the one who made that video?” So I deleted the reply and promptly changed my name to NTDEV on Twitter, while also adding a fancier bio… Then I replied to him again, under my new persona.

And the rest is history.

Thank you for your attention.

If you’ve been following me for a while, you might have noticed that I have an obsession with making small Windows images. I think it’s fun and it goes to show how modular Windows truly is. As of recently, I thought that the smallest Windows image one could make is based off of OneCoreUpdateOS, which is a 64MB WIM file that is only used for, you guessed it, updating. However, it looks like there is another image, even smaller, so small that it’s not really fair to call it Windows, as it doesn’t even contain Win32k.

So, I decided to dig deeper. At first, I thought I had hit a dead end, as I wasn’t able to find anything closely resembling what they described.

But then, I started to gain some more info.

One of the things that Gustave didn’t mention, however, is where the files are located. At first, I tried searching them on my own PC, to see if my image contains them, but to no avail. So, I downloaded all the UUP packages of the latest Windows 10 build, which as of now is 21322.

And, lo and behold, it’s there! The complete path of the file is:

Microsoft-Windows-Shielded-VM-Tools-FoD-Package~31bf3856ad364e35~amd64~~.cab\amd64_microsoft-windows-ptp-bootos_31bf3856ad364e35_10.0.21322.1000_none_e8c04c18969158e9

So, now that we have found the golden goose, what can we do with it?

Well, let’s deploy it, of course! Just like with UpdateOS, I made two partitions, one for EFI and one for the OS. The deployment, as you might have expected, was done in an instant.

But then, just as I wanted to make the image bootable, an oopsie happened.

It looks like the image is so small that the Windows folder doesn’t contain the Boot folder, required to create a bootable image.

So, with that being said, I took the Boot folder from my own Windows image and thought to give it a try.

Now, let’s also bring in this file and see what happens.

So, it looks like the config folder doesn’t contain the BCD-Templates file. Let’s see what is actually in the config the folder.

Yet again, I have to bring out my own toys. Let’s see if after copying the template it works.

Yay! Now, the moment of truth. Will it boot? Do we officially have a new contender for the smallest usable NT image?

Not yet. At this point, if we bring in a few more files it will become bigger than UpdateOS

But finally, after I inserted the winload.efi file, it boots. And… that’s about it. As soon as it finishes booting it shuts down. I tried loading a native NT application, but it simply ignores everything I throw at it.

Now, you might say: Debug it, dummy! And that’s what I did (after bringing in some more files, as it didn’t have some KD* DLLs)

Unfortunately, debugging doesn’t go to further, as it just seems like it’s shutting down in an orderly manner (it’s not triggered by any error, or so it seems).

Well, unfortunately it looks like we reached a dead end. For now, at least. I will keep trying to make BootOS do more stuff than just, well… booting, but for it seems like this Windows image is truly worth of its name.

Thank you for your attention.

If you’re following my Twitter account, you might have seen that a few days ago I found out that DWM was leaking memory while also using a lot of GPU power. While looking for possible culprits, I found out on a suggested Reddit post that you can increase a laptop’s refresh rate above the specified limit. Having caught my interest, I saved this post to my bookmarks, so that I could attempt it at a later time. After fixing my GPU issues (by rolling back to an earlier driver), I decided to try this. I mean, what’s the worst it could happen?

But first, a little disclaimer: while this worked out fine for me (as I managed to increase my laptop’s refresh rate from 60Hz to a respectable 77Hz), your mileage may vary.

Also, I have only tried this on a laptop which has its display output driven by the Intel UHD 620 integrated graphics.

So, without further ado, let’s go!

For this, you only need one utility, called Custom Resolution Utility. It is open source and you can download it from here: Custom Resolution Utility (CRU) (monitortests.com).

After you unpack it, open CRU.exe. Here, you’ll see a screen that can look quite overwhelming, but don’t worry, it’s a lot easier than you think.

Here, select the current display configuration (in my case, the one up top) from the “detailed resolutions” pane and hit edit.

At this screen, click the copy button up top. Then, close this window and press on the “add” button next to the edit button (again, in the “detailed resolutions pane”).

Here, click on paste, and only edit the Refresh Rate from the Frequency rate at the bottom. Don’t go too wild at first! You can try adding just 1-2Hz at the beginning, to see if it’s even possible to do this procedure on your configuration. Then, after you add your new refresh rate, click OK on both screens, and then reboot the system. You have to do this every time you change the refresh rate, so that the new value would appear.

Then, you can try the new refresh rate by going into Settings – System – Display – Advanced Display Settings

If it worked to change the refresh rate even by just 1Hz, congrats! Now you can try higher frequencies. Again, try increasing by 1-2Hz, as right now your display is in uncharted territories, so it can stop working at any time.

Now, what happens when you go too far?

If you go too far, don’t worry, your display is not gonna break, as it will revert to its previous state in 15 seconds. In my case, when I went past the 77Hz limit, even by 1Hz, my display started looking as if it was interlaced, and it had huge smearing issues.

And, that’s pretty much it! All in all, I think it’s a great method of improving the overall responsiveness of the system, without too many downsides.

If you want to see the original Reddit post about this, here it is. Guide for increasing Laptop monitor / screen refresh rates (or any monitor) : GlobalOffensive (reddit.com).

Thank you for your attention.

One of the main reasons some people tend to avoid updating their PCs is that “it makes it slower”. Especially with Windows 10’s Software as a Service approach, where it gets the so-called “feature updates” twice a year. But is it actually true?

Today we’re gonna find out how much Windows 10’s performance has changed over time, by benchmarking 10 elements of the OS experience:

• Installation time
• Boot/reboot time
• Win32 app opening
• UWP app opening
• Windows Search
• GDI performance
• GDI stress test
• Windows Defender Quick Scan
• I/O performance
• Shutdown

But first, a little disclaimer: although I tried the best I could to compare the performance metrics as objectively as possible, there might have been some slip-ups in the measurements. For the purposes of this experiment I used Hyper-V as the hypervisor of choice, with 4GB of RAM, 4 cores and a 32GB fixed disk for each build.

Each version was clean installed.

So, without further ado, let’s go!

1. Installation time

The setup process is the end user’s first incursion into the OS experience. Over the last Windows versions (specifically Vista and later), Microsoft has made major strides in ensuring that the Windows installation is as smooth and efficient as possible. But how fast is it?

For each build, I made sure that I used an installation image that uses the .WIM format, for consistent and accurate results. Also, for objectively comparing speeds and reducing the human error to as little as possible, an unattended file was utilized.

As we can see, during the first 3 public release of Windows 10 the result is pretty consistent. However, after Creators Update, we can see an increase with about 3 minutes. The peak, however, is with Windows 10 October 2018 update (build 17763), where the installation takes a whopping 18 minutes and 40 seconds. After RS5, it seems that the installation process is a bit speedier, but not at the same level as the pre-RS2 builds.

Verdict: Windows 10’s setup process did get a bit slower, but not to a dramatic extent. This might be caused by the fact that subsequent releases of Windows 10 use more disk space, which obviously translates into longer write times.

2. Boot time

One of the most benchmarked areas of performance in an OS is the boot speed. It sets the tone in overall performance, as a system that boots slowly will most likely also run slow. Since Windows 8, the boot process has been significantly changed* to take advantage of modern storage devices such as SSDs.
* – the fast boot feature has been disabled for the purposes of this measurement.

As we can see, the boot time did increase quite dramatically since Windows 10 Anniversary Update. (with a noticeable dip in Creators Update). If we compare Windows 10 TH1 with Windows 10 20H1, we have an increase of about 2.6 times. Of course, in this context it’s only a matter of mere seconds, but on a slower system it is definitely going to be a lot more noticeable.

For reboot time, the graph is pretty similar.

Verdict: The boot times did in fact get slower with subsequent builds. This is probably caused by the new security technologies implemented in newer builds of Windows, as well as the new services introduced.

3. Win32 applications

Although Microsoft tried to make their UWP apps as the future, to this day Win32 is still what makes Windows… Windows.

The apps I chose for this benchmark are all inbox Windows apps: Windows Explorer, winver, Notepad, Internet Explorer, Paint, Registry Editor, msconfig, msinfo32, Wordpad, Control Panel and Task Manager.

Again, we can see that we have a pretty significant slowdown starting with Windows 10 1809, being twice as slow as the previous build. Again, if we compare the lowest point with the highest, we have a difference of more than 3 times. Not a good look.

Verdict: Win32 programs will most likely open slower in newer builds of Windows.

4. UWP applications

Universal Windows Platform is (or was, depending on who you ask) Microsoft’s application platform for their “One Windows” vision. UWP is supposed to facilitate app development, so that one can write an app once, and then it would run on a plethora of devices. Unfortunately nowadays, UWP is in an awkward position of being somewhat neglected by Microsoft, thing that can especially be seen in the Store.

The apps that were benchmarked are: Microsoft Edge, Settings, Calculator, Calendar, Maps, Movies and TV, Groove Music, People, Store and Voice Recorder

We have some pretty dramatic results in this area. Again, things worsened dramatically starting with 1809, with the peak being with 19H1. The results couldn’t be more clear.

Verdict: Opening UWP apps did become dramatically slower with subsequent feature updates.

5. Windows Search

For the purpose of this experiment, I used Windows Search to find all instances of msinfo32 in the C: drive. Let’s check the results:

Here, unlike our other benchmarks, the results are varying wildly, so we can’t say for sure that we have a regression.

Verdict: Inconclusive results.

6. GDI Benchmark

For this test I used ADeltaX’s REGDI32 benchmark, which creates 9900 GDI handles, just below the maximum threshold of 10000. This program benchmarks the time it takes to render all the handles. Let’s take a look:

As we can see, we had a steady growth until Windows 10 19H1, which ended with a dramatic drop with 20H1. So, it looks like whatever was going on with the GDI performance was fortunately fixed, which is a refreshing sight.

Verdict: GDI performance used to get slower with each subsequent release, but it got fixed.

7. Explorer stress test

For this benchmark I created a very simple batch script which opens instances of File Explorer until GDI depletion. This tests not only the GDI rendering speed, but also Win32 opening times. The faster it takes to see visual artifacts, the better.

We have yet again a major increase in time starting with Windows 10 1809. Although we saw in the previous segment that GDI performance was dramatically improved with 20H1, it still didn’t help all that much in reducing the time until depletion. As such, we can conclude that the prolonged time is caused by Win32 app opening speed being lower.

Verdict: It takes more time to open enough Explorer instances that the OS will be out of GDI handles.

8. Windows Defender Quick Scan

Whether we love it or hate it, Windows Defender has become a more and more integrated part with Windows, each feature update adding new improvements to it. But what about doing an good old quick scan? Let’s see if it got slower or faster:

Looks like after Anniversary Update, the scan speed got much faster, and while newer builds have varying results, they are still much better than the first two releases of Windows 10.

Verdict: Windows Defender not only got smarter, but it also is a lot faster compared to initial releases of Windows 10.

9. Disk I/O performance

For this benchmark I used diskspd, which is a free, open-source utility provided by Microsoft for testing the I/O subsystem performance.

The command used is diskspd -c1G -d300 -r -w40 -o32 -t8 -b64k -Sh -L

The following chart shows the total I/O read and written.

In an interesting turn of events, Windows 10 1809 is actually the fastest of the whole bunch of builds. It looks like Microsoft did some improvements to the I/O subsystem, as these changes persisted over to the next releases.

Verdict: Windows 10’s I/O performance is somewhat better nowadays.

10. Shutdown.

Last, but not least, we can’t finish benchmarking the OS experience without measuring the shutdown speed. Although not that important overall, it still gives us an impression of the whole OS tenacity.

Let’s see.

Verdict: The results are pretty consistent across the board, which means that the shutdown speed is in broad lines the same.

So, let’s answer the question: Did Windows 10 become slower over time?

Well, kind of. However, most of the people will not notice this regression. We have also seen some notable improvements in the I/O department, as well as security.

Why did this happen?

We can blame a lot of things that may have caused this regression. Some might say the lost interest for mobile devices by Microsoft made them not as vigilant in fine-tuning every component to its maximum performance (as some of you might know, Windows Phones were praised for their excellent performance, even on low end hardware). Other might put the blame on the enhanced security Windows has nowadays. Gone are the days where one might get viruses easily from the internet, as Windows Defender has an ever-growing grip on the end user’s ability to modify the OS as they please.

If you want to see a video walkthrough of some of the benchmarks taken, you can check it right here:

Thank you for your attention.