Atlas OS: Windows without the clutter

[AthlonXP1800]

I like the idea to **** windows (as they write on the website) and disable everything that is not necessary for gaming !
Because i have fedora for everyday tasks and my windows is only for gaming. So that's what i want

But if you use windows for everyday tasks, it's suicide i think

I don't care if it destroys my windows, its a 20 min time to reinstall and i can live without

it not suicide. I use Windows for everyday tasks very heavily around 70% RAM usage and 450 processes run multitasks and played games just fine compared to stock Windows with 150 processes in youtube videos and performance was the same with stripped down Windows versions too. I did tested Tiny11 and Ghost Spectre, impressed with it but with 22 processes and games performance is still the same with 450 processes so it is pointless really. It not worth install it with your high end CPU and GPU.

Found some good comments on youtube agreed with me:

@danniiffxi ​

3 months ago

Best comparison I have seen, thank you.. This has basically made my mind up for me, it is not worth installing any of these, if anything I am going to wait for Atlas 11.

@Sebastian-pc1mr ​

7 months ago

I'd like to install Atlas on one of my SSD in order to improve the gaming performance of my old machine, but seeing this comparison, now I'm changing ideas. Can't see much difference at all. I think it isn't worth it, is it?

 

[O.Giroud]

Well i think its worth to remove tellemetry and all other microsoft useless things
But i repeat myself

 

[Ice Tea]

Sorry to be pedantic but removing Windows telemetry doesn't remove all the other online telemetry unless you spend lots of time and money like @Rainmaker so does it matter?

 

[O.Giroud]

I am juste happy to remove all the microsoft components that i don't need for gaming
Its a satisfaction

Sorry i am french so i don't know if i explain well, but for me its simple to understand

 

[Ice Tea]

Keep us all updated on how you get on with it in the future.

 

[nade]

Really need to find some time to try these out. Quite like the look of Tiny11.

I'm sure I read somewhere that some of the additional tools used to modify the Task Bar / Start Menu were being broken by windows updates. Does anyone know if this is still an issue(?)

 

[AthlonXP1800]

Well i think its worth to remove tellemetry and all other microsoft useless things
But i repeat myself

That is fine just for you.

But for me I enabled full telemetry because it is very useful to find out why apps or OS crashed through telemetry data viewer and also I granted Microsoft permission to upload my telemetry data for Microsoft engineer to bug fix issues for future OS builds or Windows Update to help improve apps, Windows 11 and 12.

if you have Android phone like me, interesting a few years ago I found Android has hidden telemetry left enabled by default buried in settings. I bet millions or billions of people not aware of it if they are paranoid about privacy. You can turn it off if you can find it but you cannot removed telemetry in stock Android ROM unless you install custom Android ROM to have full root access that can remove telemetry and other useless things.

 

[Scort]

I've used a custom W10 (and recently Tiny 11) since circa 2016 - never had any issues, everything worked fine, and can still diagnose anything I needed.

Of course everyone's milage will vary, but it's easy to DISM things back in if you need to - provided you don't go mad and remove everything (like some of the 700 meg XP installs), you're pretty safe to use as a daily driver.

 

[O.Giroud]

That is fine just for you

indeed its fine for me and that's why i am happy with it
Where is the problem with that ?

And you, well do what you want of course

Everyone should know what he needs

 

[Emlyn_Dewar]

if you have Android phone like me, interesting a few years ago I found Android has hidden telemetry left enabled by default buried in settings. I bet millions or billions of people not aware of it if they are paranoid about privacy. You can turn it off if you can find it but you cannot removed telemetry in stock Android ROM unless you install custom Android ROM to have full root access that can remove telemetry and other useless things.

Android's lack of privacy, doesn't really excuse Microsoft's invasion of it on Windows.
For me, it's basically a lost cause when every single app, site, thing is desperate to harvest your information to build a profile. What I do dislike about it, is the impact you'll see on battery life and performance, on lower end machines.

The fact that services like this one exist, show some people need to use Windows but are tired of it being a mess of services that don't need to/shouldn't be running. On my Ayaneo, I absolutely don't want any of Microsoft's bloated **** running in the background. There's good difference to the battery life with it all disabled.
Very tempted to try Atlas out on it.

 

[Rroff]

On my Ayaneo, I absolutely don't want any of Microsoft's bloated **** running in the background. There's good difference to the battery life with it all disabled.
Very tempted to try Atlas out on it.

It is quite destructive on the Lenovo Legion Go as well. I've got a mini PC I use on my network for syncing files - when playing around with it when setting it up Windows 10 Pro was averaging almost twice the power use compared to Windows 7 or Ubuntu, and disabling a lot of stuff didn't hugely change that though it helps, especially disabling a lot of updates stuff.

 

[Ice Tea]

The way people get over dramatic on places like reddit makes it hard to know if there are genuine concerns about security with these type of program/scripts or if it's just scaremongering as i remember seeing people kicking off when tiny11 had a incorrect certificate for oscdimg.exe.

 

[Murphy]

Depends, the problem with using an OS modified by someone else is trust, you have to trust that they're not going to do anything malicious. With companies like MS, Apple, or Canonical there's a level of trust bestowed by the fact if they do malicious things it would result in reputational/monetary damage.

With something like these third-party modified versions of Windows, ignoring the fact that it's illegal, they don't have that level of trust. If at some point in the future people discover a backdoor that's been sitting there all this time that turns thousands of Atlas OS installs into bot-farms what's the repercussions going to be, the people who make Atlas OS probably would've already done a runner, a large number of people who installed it probably won't even see what little media coverage there maybe of it, it will simply be a case of what did you expect.

If one day the people who publish these modified OS's do the dirty what are you going to do, take them to court?

 

[Scort]

Depends, the problem with using an OS modified by someone else is trust, you have to trust that they're not going to do anything malicious. With companies like MS, Apple, or Canonical there's a level of trust bestowed by the fact if they do malicious things it would result in reputational/monetary damage.

With something like these third-party modified versions of Windows, ignoring the fact that it's illegal, they don't have that level of trust. If at some point in the future people discover a backdoor that's been sitting there all this time that turns thousands of Atlas OS installs into bot-farms what's the repercussions going to be, the people who make Atlas OS probably would've already done a runner, a large number of people who installed it probably won't even see what little media coverage there maybe of it, it will simply be a case of what did you expect.

If one day the people who publish these modified OS's do the dirty what are you going to do, take them to court?

The same could possibly be said about github and maybe even Linux repositories - contributors to those could very well be 'bad actors', and unless you're clued up enough, you wouldn't know what was loaded or how to deal with issues.

I see the likes of these operating system variants as something more niche, and for tinker-ers, for people who frequent forums like this; where most have a decent level of hardware and software knowledge. The types who might just trial these things for a few months or so, before moving onto the next best thing - they're hardly likely to be long term and unlikely to even find their way onto a device owned by PC World types.

I used to do the whole slipstreaming and modifying of XP when I used to game, and to a lesser extent, Windows 7 too. But would frequently rebuild my PC throughout the year - usually because something in a game or the o/s had been tweaked too far - so flattening was the easiest option.

Regardless of the legality side of things, it's nice to have these options - I personally prefer the DISM route to remove Windows 10 guff, but I do have a device running Tiny 11, it's a shame that you can't get a modern Windows with just an o/s now; heck even at work the VLSC downloads still need a fair amount of work to remove all the 'consumer' trash

 

[Murphy]

The same could possibly be said about github and maybe even Linux repositories - contributors to those could very well be 'bad actors', and unless you're clued up enough, you wouldn't know what was loaded or how to deal with issues.

Distinction there being those are open source so people can see exactly what's there, third-party modified OS's are not unless you have the time to go through 4-5GB of data, verify the hash of each and every file, byte compare all the databases like the registry, etc, etc.

Sure OS's like this are for "niche, and for tinker-ers" but if you're those then why not DIY and make your own modified OS.

 

[Scort]

Distinction there being those are open source so people can see exactly what's there, third-party modified OS's are not unless you have the time to go through 4-5GB of data, verify the hash of each and every file, byte compare all the databases like the registry, etc, etc.

Sure OS's like this are for "niche, and for tinker-ers" but if you're those then why not DIY and make your own modified OS.

What's to say these don't also follow the same development principals though? Although skirting/breaking the EULA, they might be made by similar teams who work on open source stuff. Pretty sure that your average niche user, isn't going to 'byte compare' anything in a Unix/Linux distro either...

Not everyone I alluded to, could build their own modified o/s - I expect this forum will have some with the expertise in the aforementioned operating system(s) to do so, but I bet there's a lot more who are happy to leave that to someone else with the experience. That's probably why they don't DIY an o/s themselves It shouldn't preclude them from being able to use it.

Pretty sure that anyone who decides to go down the Tiny 11 route (or the others in this thread) understand the risks, and the fact you won't be able to go banging on Microsoft's door for help/with complaints.

 

[AthlonXP1800]

Distinction there being those are open source so people can see exactly what's there, third-party modified OS's are not unless you have the time to go through 4-5GB of data, verify the hash of each and every file, byte compare all the databases like the registry, etc, etc.

Sure OS's like this are for "niche, and for tinker-ers" but if you're those then why not DIY and make your own modified OS.

You dont need to have the time to go trough 4-5GB of data to verify the hash on every file.

Over 25 years ago I downloaded Windows beta builds from newsgroup, OP uploaded QuickSFV with SFV file contain every rar files hash. When I completed downloaded all rar files then I launched QuickSFV file to verified every rar file hash first to make sure no bad actors tampered the files before decompressed rar files.

QuickSFV was not very fast and not been updated since 2010. I found new SFV alternative called SFVNinja that can generate SFV file hash and verify files hash in a few secs, lighting faster than ancient slow QuickSFV. All I have to do is put the original Microsoft Windows 11 setup files from iso into folder then SFVNinja generated SFV file contained Microsoft original files hash then create new folders for Tiny11 etc and dropped all files included original Microsoft generated SFV file. Launch SFVNinja to open SFV file to verify files hash, out of 946 original Microsoft files, around 800 files hash matched, about 150 files are missing mean files were deleted after OS modified to reduced size. Install.wim file hash not matched then I used PeaZip to opened Install.wim to looked inside and compared to original Install.wim, many drivers were deleted that was not needed.

Only took a few mins to do it.

 

[Murphy]

What's to say these don't also follow the same development principals though?

Seeing and reading code is not a principal it's an action, you don't principal a book in order to know if it contains any naughty words, you read it.

Pretty sure that your average niche user, isn't going to 'byte compare' anything in a Unix/Linux distro either...

They don't have to because the point of open source is that it's open for anyone to read so there's a level of trust that someone else has, personally that's why i steer clear of the more niche distros.

Not everyone I alluded to, could build their own modified o/s - I expect this forum will have some with the expertise in the aforementioned operating system(s) to do so, but I bet there's a lot more who are happy to leave that to someone else with the experience. That's probably why they don't DIY an o/s themselves It shouldn't preclude them from being able to use it.

Pretty sure that anyone who decides to go down the Tiny 11 route (or the others in this thread) understand the risks, and the fact you won't be able to go banging on Microsoft's door for help/with complaints.

Then that's the risk they take, a risk they should be made fully aware of so they can make an informed choice.

Over 25 years ago I downloaded Windows beta builds from newsgroup, OP uploaded QuickSFV with SFV file contain every rar files hash. When I completed downloaded all rar files then I launched QuickSFV file to verified every rar file hash first to make sure no bad actors tampered the files before decompressed rar files.

If only you knew what you were actually doing when you verified the hash of those archives, or for that matter if only you knew that MS doesn't make a habit of releasing beta builds of Windows on newgroups in rars.

 

[Scort]

@Murphy it's clear you aren't the target audience of these chopped down versions of Windows, and might actually find what you're after in the Linux sub.

Not sure why you are so against their existence, or the people who wish to use such things - I get the feeling you want gatekeeping in place or something, like unless you know the ins and outs of development work, and how to build an o/s yourself - you don't get to play.

Those of us who don't see nefarious actions inside every 'customised' Windows, and take them as they are - something different, possibly unstable, but interesting to take a punt with, will carry on using them.

 

[Murphy]

@Murphy it's clear you aren't the target audience of these chopped down versions of Windows, and might actually find what you're after in the Linux sub.

Not sure why you are so against their existence, or the people who wish to use such things - I get the feeling you want gatekeeping in place or something, like unless you know the ins and outs of development work, and how to build an o/s yourself - you don't get to play.

Those of us who don't see nefarious actions inside every 'customised' Windows, and take them as they are - something different, possibly unstable, but interesting to take a punt with, will carry on using them.

Putting aside how disingenuous you're being by misrepresenting what i actually said, you know like pretending i said anything about being against their existence, the people who wish to use such things, making out like i said anything about wanting to be a gatekeeper or something, putting that all aside.

What you're essentially saying is that the target audience are people who don't know enough to do it themselves and ipso facto don't know enough to know if the people publishing these modified OS's have done anything nefarious with them, and to top it off you actually have the temerity to berate someone for wanting to inform people of the potential dangers.

e: What AthlonXP1800 posted about verifying the hashes of beta builds of Windows on newgroups in rars being the perfect example of how a lack of information can cause misplaced trust. (Verifying hashes esablishes a chain of trust, a chain that in the case of beta builds of Windows on newgroups in rars only goes back as far as the person who orginally created those archives, not all the way back to MS).