Hey people!
I love Linux and would really prefer not needing Windows, but… Software.
I made a Qemu Image with Win11 and all the tweaks available pretty much
- local account with the offline trick
- ran Bulk Crap uninstaller and removed pretty much everything
- ran WinUtil by Chris Titus
- only security updates
- disabled unnecessary features
- removed Edge
- installed Firefox with some basic setup
- installed Simplewall, enabled Simplewall (MS Store currently does not work, no idea)
- installed all the virtIO drivers, even drag&drop and internet work
Apart from that the image is a s minimal as possible.
Its a 6GB compressed Qemu image with 60GB uncompressed afaik. The image runs using virt-managers default settings, using TianoCoer UEFI and TPM passthrough
Its in German, and no idea if Windows even allows changing the language. Its Windows 11 Professional, but doesnt include a license.
Followup
Of course I cant guarantee anything as this stuff is proprietary and hashes would probably never be the same on any install due to proprietary magic soup.
Hit me up on SimpleX if you want a link, I shouldn’t share it here
What makes Enterprise Windows different? But that tool sounds cool!
Usually less bloat ootb and less/no feature updates, longer update support. But actually I haven’t compared those Win11 versions by myself. I use Enterprise versions since Win7, with Win10 Iot Enterprise LTSC being the best version of all (at least currently) and it has support till 2032 :)
Okay thats crazy! I think Win10 is unusable and Win11 us a bit better and also worse, like an Explorer with Tabs wtf how long did that take? But the apps seem very bloated too, using bad libraries or something, its just slow. But I am quite happy with my setup currently, will switch the VM to Win11 enterprise if Win12 is even worse