Tyler's wiki

To avoid having a Microsoft account to login to your own computer that you own, disconnect internet before installing. When it complains about this, tell it to shut up.

When it gets to "privacy settings", turn off EVERYTHING.

Microsoft has hit their head and forgotten that Fitt's Law shows that corners are demonstrably optimal for critical UI components. Let's un-center that taskbar.

1. Right click taskbar, options.
2. Turn off "taskbar items" you don't want (hint: "Chat" is a program and shouldn't even be on that list)
3. Expand "Taskbar behaviors" and flip settings as desired.

You can go to add and remove programs and immediately rip out this bloatware trash:

• Disney+
• Groove Music
• Microsoft News
• Microsoft OneDrive
• Microsoft To Do
• Movies & TV

Additionally, we now live in a world where your motherboard can contain crap that gets auto-installed after Windows comes up via UEFI. Some might be good (drivers), but there may be trash (shoddy RGB light controllers, various "gamer" services like "ROG" and "Armory", etc.) that you can kill.

Install O&O Shutup10 and enable the default options. Also, turn on "Allow deferred upgrades".

Install Classic Shell, likely through Ninite.

• Press Win + I to open System settings
• Personalization.
• "Show color on Start and taskbar" → on
• "Show color on title bars and windows borders" → on

• View → Show → File name extensions = ON
• Three dots → Options
  • General tab
    • Open File Explorer to: This PC
    • Show recently used files in Quick access = off
    • Show frequently used folders in Quick access = off
  • View tab
    • Navigation pane (these were formerly in the general tab)
      • Show all folders → on
      • Expand to current folder → on
    • Display the full path in the title bar → on

right click recycle bin | properties

• don't move files to the recycle bin → enable (maybe)
• Display delete confirmation dialog → YES (jesus christ how is that not default?)

win+pause/break to get to system properties

• "advanced system settings" on the left to get to the REAL system properties
  • advanced tab
    • performance | setttings | turn off candy as desired
    • startup and recovery | settings | automatically restart → off

In the native Windows 11 start menu, type "underline", and it should shortcut you to the appropriate control panel option.

Win10 calculator sucks. I made a whole website to expedite getting old calculator: https://calcexe.com

There's a bunch of nonsense folders forced on you in your home directory. These can be managed with WinAero Tweaker.

This INI file for it will remove dumb folders and add Dropbox and Google Drive to the "This PC" view in explorer.

OLD: Info on manually removing just the '3D Objects' folder.

If you are a crazy person and want the 3D bronze cursors from Windows XP:

1. Extract this file somewhere
2. Start | "mouse" | Pointers tab
3. Save a new profile "3D Bronze"
4. For each cursor in the ZIP, change the corresponding entry to it

Superseded by O&O Shutup described above

based on this.

• start → settings → privacy → feedback and diagnostics
  • stare with shocked amazement as the lowest setting is "basic", and "off" is not an option; you literally dont have that choice in the interface
  • set it to "basic", and proceed with the rest of the steps to really turn it off
• regedit:
  • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\DataCollection
  • make dword "AllowTelemetry" = 0
• in services, set the following to "disabled" and stop:
  • Diagnostics Tracking Service (early win10)
  • Connected User Experiences and Telemetry (later win10)
  • dmwappushsvc