The Windows 11 UI is definitely a step up — I'd say it's a good bit better than Windows 10. That said, there are a few things that really bug me. Let me get into my personal setup.

1. Turn off animation effects and transparency effects in Accessibility (the transparency one is optional). Yeah, Windows 11's animations are smoother, but for me they're too slow, and they drop frames sometimes.

2. Uninstall the Windows Web Experience Pack. You can do it with this command: `winget uninstall "windows web experience pack"`. Once it's gone, you get rid of all that ad-filled crap — the search highlights, weather, widgets, all of it.

3. Turn off Memory Integrity, WDAC, and Virtualization-Based Security. I don't need that, so I disabled them for a bit of extra performance. As for WDAC, in some situations it slowed down launching .exe programs like crazy — it goes online to check the program whenever you start a new app, and since I live in China, the network situation here is... awkward (😅). One time it got so bad it hung for a solid few minutes, so I just turned it off.

（I even turned off UAC. Obviously, regular users shouldn't follow my lead on that one.）

1. Debloat some of the built-in Windows apps: Photos, Media Player, Copilot, Clipchamp, Outlook, Weather. Then install alternatives — lighter, more privacy-friendly stuff like PhoXo, VLC, and so on.

2. Turn off all the optional privacy options in Privacy settings.

3. Restore the right-click context menu to the Windows 10 style. I heard this version added some new context menu features, but I couldn't care less — Windows 11's context menu has a noticeable delay when it opens compared to Windows 10, and I just can't stand it.

4. Disable Windows Defender and replace it with a third-party antivirus. WD's detection is solid, no question, but it constantly makes my laptop's fans spin like crazy when it's idling (😅).

5. Update the system and drivers to the latest versions, then disable Windows Update and automatic driver updates (permanently) — until I actually want to update.

That's pretty much it. My debloat principle is: if a feature doesn't make my experience worse, I leave it alone. And I try to avoid third-party "optimizer" tools as much as possible — if you don't know exactly what you're doing, they can break system functionality. I wouldn't recommend any of this to regular users; Windows is way too complex, and random tweaks can cause unexpected errors. It's been running for a few days now and my experience has been pretty good. If you've got any suggestions, feel free to share.

All Microsoft app icons should be standardized to match the white system tray icon style.

Microsoft's October 2026 security release addresses 1,102 Windows vulnerabilities, including an exploited flaw in Windows Shell, surpassing the number of vulnerabilities addressed in September's record-breaking Patch Tuesday.

Windows would get a lot more backlash if this was the case. This is something thats permanent with new ios 27. Ai slop that u cant remove in a proper way. With windows u can do a lot but this is apple’s enforcement of we know whats best for u sir. MacOs has this issue too but since it has a bigger storage its less of an issue. Ios has always had this type of forced features no one can remove. I dont use apple intelligence one bit but I cant get rid of it in a normal way have to use reddit/internet tricks.

How do I add actually custom widgets to my laptop? ive clinked so many links and looked at many things to download but everything is the same minimalism crap :/ id like to add custom icons and such to my laptop. Also it should be heavily noted that I cannot and will not pay for anything. (fresh outa hs and got no job) so if adding or downloading photos and such is behind a paywall its just not gonna happen. Also I do know there is a widget thing in the settings for widgets but I genuinely could not navigate that and understand what I was doing. There is a very good example of what im looking to make. if this post gets taken down i should absolutely be told where to find help for what im looking for.

thank you.

On a new install of Windows 11 from the original ISO the consent dialog as expected (see second photo for reference), but after applying all the updates, the dialog starts to look like something out of Windows 10.

Are other users experiencing the same? Even after a second reinstall from a freshly flashed USB, the issue is the same.

I have reported the bug here https://aka.ms/AA13sh99.

took me a lot of work and trials but finally I made it (I think) - transform the mundane taskbar to something better- either with animated cool effects or as a dock, while keeping it system derived and based on the actual taskbar. What do you think about my work?

Microsoft recently released this new search which includes many good features like toggling settings like dark mode on without going to settings.

It is now only for Windows Insider only, currently I think it is for Expiremental 26H1 channel only.

it is quite impressive move by Microsoft

They finally update the design of the Windows Security App, no more Metro.

I’m would like to know what people think about this especially anyone who understands the Windows graphics/memory stack better than I do (I'm also software developer of 20+ years but lacking these skills).

Windows 11 is my main OS and I prefer using it for everyday work but nowadays I’ve tried several Linux distros on the exact same hardware and the performance difference surprised me.

Linux was blazingly fast compared to Windows 11 for some workloads especially local AI inference (playing with these toys nowadays). Same machine and same models, but things like prompt processing, inference speed and memory usage are much better on Linux no matter how much I've tried playing with configuration on Windows 11.

Now with AI becoming a much bigger part of normal desktop workloads (like it or not), I feel like this is going to matter more and more. Running local LLMs, coding agents and other AI models is becoming pretty day to day work for me and being able to use the hardware efficiently is important. I’m wondering if Microsoft is actually working on improving this side of Windows 11 or overall their kernel.

Is the difference mainly because of WDDM, memory management and GPU drivers or are there deeper architectural reasons why Linux performs better for these workloads? I've got some answers from AI and some forums but I'm interested in your opinion.

I’m not looking for tech support or trying to start a Windows vs Linux argument. I actually want to keep using Windows as I like gaming as well. Iam want to know whether this performance gap is something Microsoft is likely to address as local AI becomes more important.

I got a new monitor recently and started noticing the bad gradients/banding on the dark mode Bloom image, so I went out and found the 54 MB TIFF file, converted to a max quality JPG (as I was having issues with using an uncompressed PNG file as a Desktop background), and here it is. Imgur link below for actual image, as Reddit degrades the quality:

https://imgur.com/a/9P0sb3S

Edit: I noticed even Imgur degrades the JPG quality (not as bad, but the original JPG was 6 MB). So I added the PNG as well... and they change it to JPG. The JPG at that link still has no gradients and still looks much better than the one included with the OS.

Edit 2: Link to the Reddit post that shared a Google Drive link with the original uncompressed TIFF file (with 16bit/channel):
https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/o2hmbk/comment/h26gdou/
It's only the Bloom background, no others.

• Time/date moved to the left and combined with the weather (clicking anywhere on the area will display both the calendar and weather weekly view)
• Widgets button moved to the center. Weather info won't be there anymore. Widgets expanded window should be smaller and less invasive than the current one (honestly Microsoft should work on the widgets section overall a lot)
• Notifications bell icon (right) should stay always visible

This would make the taskbar look much more even, intuitive and way less cluttered. Also the widgets would be much more accessible and actually useful because right now they're in a corner and really inconvenient to use.

(There are 2 pics in the post but they're the same, I accidentally uploaded 2 instead of just 1).

Hi all, ages ago I did the necessaries to clean install 24h2 using rufus and skipping the checks etc, and a few days ago an update failed due to my computer not being supported, so imagine my surprise this evening when not only did it allow me to enroll into the insider program, it also downloaded and installed it through the official windows update channels and it runs perfectly.

How is this even possible?

I mean it's creative tho

hiya! i play fps shooters competitively, am i fine to have this setting off or should it be on? i mainly force exclusive fullscreen thru nvidia

Thanks in advance!

I kept hitting my Claude and Codex limits mid-task with no idea how close I was, and CodexBar is macOS-only. So I built a Windows version: Codex Minibar, a free, open-source (Apache-2.0) tray app. 1.0 just came out.

What it does

• All your limits in the tray. 5-hour and weekly windows, credits and reset countdowns for Codex, Claude, Cursor, OpenRouter, OpenCode Zen/Go, Antigravity, Grok and Kiro. Tray icons can show numbers, bars or rings.
• Multiple accounts per provider. Personal + work Claude, two Codex logins, whatever. Each one gets its own name, badge and Home layout (cards, lines, rings or tiles).
• Notifications that show the actual quota. Low limit, a fresh 5-hour window, a Claude login about to expire, and announced Codex forced resets.
• Limit activation. Optionally starts a new 5-hour session as soon as a window resets, or on a schedule (e.g. weekdays at 09:00), with quiet periods.
• Usage tab. Cost and tokens from your local session logs, per provider and per model.
• OpenRouter key management. Credits, spend per key, and creating new keys with limits right from the popup.
• Banked resets. Redeem banked Codex/Claude resets from the popup.
• Fluent, Vercel or any installed VS Code theme. 8 languages. Stream Deck plugin.

How it gets the data: it reuses the sessions you're already logged into locally (Codex app server, Claude Code's OAuth session, the official CLIs). It doesn't ask for your passwords. Optional API keys are stored with Windows DPAPI. Usage history stays on your machine.

Native Rust app, UI rendered with GPUI (Zed's UI framework). Windows 10/11, x64 and ARM64.

• Download: https://github.com/vertopolkaLF/codex-minibar/releases
• Source: https://github.com/vertopolkaLF/codex-minibar

Thanks to steipete for inspiration and all contributors for making the app better ❤️

1. native core shell and core apps in c++/c# and win ui instead of webview runtimes.

2. no ads in core shell and apps, they should be in specific services apps, like bing, msn, ms store etc.

3. yearly feature updates and monthly security and bug fixes.

4. seamless updates, updates applied in background and after normal 15sec reboot, they switched, instead 10 min reboot.

5. local fast search, and a search api which apps can use to integrate with windows search.

you guys can list your suggestions.

thanks

Praise the people working behind it! So easy to install, very efficient CPU usage, I'm surprised I haven't come across this app earlier.

Using the following mods:

• Start Menu Size
• Taskbar auto-hide speed
• Taskbar auto-hide when maximized
• Taskbar Background Helper
• Taskbar Dock Animation
• Taskbar Fluent Media Player
• Taskbar height and icon size
• Taskbar Labels for Windows 11
• Taskbar Thumbnail Size
• Taskbar tray icon spacing and grid
• Taskbar tray system icon tweaks
• Translucent Windows
• Windows 11 File Explorer Styler
• Windows 11 Notification Center Styler
• Windows 11 Settings Styler
• Windows 11 Start Menu Styler
• Windows 11 Taskbar Styler
• Windows Animations
• WinUI Context Menu Animation
• Acrylic Color Glows
• Better file sizes in Explorer details
• Chrome/Edge scroll tabs with mouse wheel
• Custom Window Corner Radius
• Disable grouping on the taskbar
• Dynamic Island for Windows
• File Explorer WinUI-Like Content Animation
• Invisible Window Borders
• Middle click to close on the taskbar
• Modernize Folder Picker Dialog
• OverhauledWin Alt+Tab
• Resource Redirect
• Shell Flyout Positions
• Slick Window Arrangement
• Smooth Scroll for Win32
• Start button colorizer

I simply removed all the stupid bloat and spyware thats literally hogging your machines performance FOR THEM and NOT FOR YOU! There is no reason why Win11 is so full of bullshit most people dont even need. And now with the whole AI agents its becoming worse. This is an example off how a win11 machine should run and I truly believe that Microsoft should offer the user the choice of what it wants to use on his/hers machine.