I am not familiar with Windows 10 . . . but it seems to include lots of "Junk".

[stockhausen]

I am not at all familiar with Windows 10 and have just built a desktop "Business" system using Windows 10 Pro. It seems to me that it seems to include lots of "Junk" and runs numerous processes and services. This system will be used with Word, Excel, email, Internet research, etc., it is unlikely ever to be used for games or for watching films or playing music.

Can anyone familiar with Windows 10 offer any advice on what can be removed and/or stopped?

 

[stockhausen]

Unfortunately, since the massive update they did to win 10 the pro version is near useless and for business it's the enterprise edition that is needed. Small business Pro is fine but lacks some of the refinements of enterprise.

However, if you know your way around you can figure it out ok. I actually used a basic Powershell script to remove a lot of the junk that wasn't needed on our work PC's, games, social media bits etc.

Between powershell, Registry edits and 'something else that the name escapes me - group policies I think' you can lock it down and streamline it.

Thanks for all that people. Unfortunately I don't know my way around Windows 10 - more pointless work and research required I fear.

I love the following opening statement from Wikipedia:

PowerShell is a task automation and configuration management framework from Microsoft.

We built a tool to allow you to remove the vast pile of rubbish we put in our OS.

 

[stockhausen]

- remove everything from the start menu and shrink it as much as possible
- hide cortana
- go in privacy settings and set everything to max privacy
- uninstall xbox gaming thingy
- unpin everything from taskbar, pin stuff u want

reasonable starting point

Sounds good, would you mind describing how to do all this, one item at a time?

It sounds like a perfect topic for a "Sticky".

On Windows 7 (and earlier), with which I have reasonable experience, you can switch off Automatic Updates and initiate updates manually; I gather that this is no longer possible with Windows 10?