[TUT] How to make the perfect stable reliable work Windows PC/Laptop

[backamblock]

Hey, the question arised in another thread, so here is step by step tutorial how to use windows as a STABLE and RELIABLE work environment
(that is NOT filled with useless crap and Ads/Bloatware by windows)
In other words.. how to get Win7 ease of use and stability in Win10


The part with Linux is aimed at when you can not boot into windows anymore but need your data from there.
still do a full data backup (+to an external drive) before you start doing anything!

LINUX PART
get 3 items:
1 USB stick 4gb or more
2 external hdd for data backup (not needed if you have 2 partitions or drives inside the laptop)
3 other PC

-start 3 and download manjaro linux or ubuntu (or other, i think its easiest to use)

-if 3 is windows, get rufus usb tool, burn the downloaded Linux iso to 1

-insert 1 to defective laptop

-turn laptop on, boot from 1, lenovo usually has a small "reset" hole somewhere on the site, you get to bios oor boot menu with this

-boot into linux, let it sit 2 minutes to calm down so you work faster

FOR USB BACKUP HDD
-insert 2 to laptop, KEEP 1 PLUGGED IN!
-copy all important data to 2 with the file manager from linux

FOR INTERNAL 2nd HDD/PARTITION
-copy all important data from windows boot partition to other partition
-EXTERNAL USB BACKUP RECOMMENDED! in case virus/RAT is on 2nd partition it can infect new windows in no time again

Now, the fun part.. reinstalling windows (yay, days gone lol)
-shut down laptop
-insert 1 back to 3
-download "windows 10 enterprise N LTSB 2016 iso" from a reputable source (see below) (NOT 2019 ltsC !!)
-burn iso to 1 with rufus

-remove any internet connection from the laptop before any installation!
-insert 1 into laptop
-boot to usb

-start windows install
-delete all partitions (except data backup ofc)...
-YES, delete recovery, boot, ... all except data backup!
-install windows on BIGGEST now empty space, in case there is more than one

-if you wish, clean out windows with "w10 better privacy script"while installing and "W10privacy" after installation

In fresh installed windows:
-right click start button
-go "programs and features"
-click turn on/off features on the left
-turn off what you dont need like internet explorer, media features (WMP), XPS services ets (i disabled all except the .NET packages)

-connect internet
-activate windows (see below)
-update
-restart
-update
-restart
-aaaand again (will take some time .. yep... windows :D)

if updated, BACKUP!!!!! to external drive (NOT windows system restore, its useless)
save it as "fresh" for example, this version will stay untouched as long as you have this PC and use Win10!

now start installing your programs
keep it clean.. reevaluate what you really need installed and what is enough as portable version

backup again ("rolling backup"), this version is your rolling backup, keep 2-3 revisions of this.
when something goes wrong but you do not want to start from scratch, this is your restore point
let this backup run once a day

if you are very scared of data loss, choose a better backup solution like NAS, Gdrive for documents (more than 1 place), work with the cloud if privacy allows it
and get a good backup program with incremental daily/hourly backups, they dont eat up as much space as full backups
watch out that it has a bootable usb/iso tool where you can recover your backup in case your windows is dead


Now you have a STABLE Windows release without useless bloatware like windows store and "candy crush saga" advertisement.. you will get security updates for the next few years without getting all the bloat the new versions are getting.
I have tried multiple versions from home to pro to the new enterprise LTSC 2019, but i could never achieve the smoothness and "it just works" with them like i do easily with LTSB.


-----------
I hope this helped some of you, if yes.. drop a thanks or a comment
However, as always, i recommend running a good stable Linux Distro like Manjaro as main and run Win10 only in virtualbox.. much less headache and only (measured by various youtubers) 1% performance loss when gaming (and we only do office work here)



RESOURCES
get all iso files with ease and directly from windows:
https://gitlab.com/s1ave77/SVF.ISO.CONVERTER

activate windows (value licensing)
https://excellenttricks.com/activate-windows-10/

(grab the correct key for your edition, watch for the "N")

Activation only works with internet connected!
short version for LTSB 16 N:
1. run CMD as admin
2.
cscript slmgr.vbs /ipk "QFFDN-GRT3P-VKWWX-X7T3R-8B639"
3.
cscript slmgr.vbs /skms kms.lotro.cc
ALTERNATIVE:
cscript slmgr.vbs /skms 120.26.211.29
4.
cscript slmgr.vbs /ato

[rsot]

Classy setup

[backamblock]

Originally Posted by rsot

Classy setup

thanks, maybe it helps somebody.. OP in the other thread seems to be gone for now unfortunately

[rsot]

Originally Posted by backamblock

thanks, maybe it helps somebody.. OP in the other thread seems to be gone for now unfortunately

True - happens, unfortunately

[backamblock]

just to keep this information updated.
of course its called volume licensing, what a stupid typo

i still run this setup 1:1 on my virtual machines, but unfortunately LTSB (2016) does not run software that requires newest dotNET frameworks or other things that require the windows version to be higher than 1803 (or something between those lines, too unnessecary of knowledge to find out the exact cause)

so somewhen feb/mar this year switched to LTSC 2019 for my main workstation/daily usage PCs where i need those newest software.
also for the more techy people out there, it has better support for the WSL and other neat stuff.
it is consuming almost double the RAM tho, i get an idle usage of 1,3GB and average of 1% CPU consumption (i7-8565u thinkpad) on a fresh install with no drivers or updates installed. and it is A LOT less snappy/responsive so i wouldn't recommend it for VMs, especially if you need RDP via internet.

for this snappiness, i guess a less techy user who does not care about every milisecond in response time will not care about it, but i wanted to mention. almost everybody i know personally is totally fine with response times of a fully bloated w10 home OEM install, so yeah...

still it is way less heavy than a fully slimmed down w10 Pro 1903 (may 2019 update) with store and all **** removed, which still uses almost 1.7gb and 5-7% CPU idle in my test last week.

----
updated installation instruction for LTSC:
skip the whole part with the betterprivacy script, it breaks the windows installation and will end in a bootloop. instead invest more time into w10privacy, which has a few more options in this newer LTSC.
in addition, there is a program called "IObit Advanced system care" which i use as portable version (=no background services!) once after installing all updates and drivers and after that once every week or so. take your time to review EVERY single setting and go through all of them in the program settings as well as in the scan result settings, also look through the "speed up" tab, there should be some things to do in "deep optimization"
for windows activation, i find "KMSauto 1.4.8" to work flawless and very fast, it is portable as well.
Note: if your antivirus says that the KMSauto you downloaded is a virus, it is a virus! delete it and get it from a more reliable source. i can recommend teamos-hkrg.com but make sure it is not posted by a new member. this is still risky sometimes.

another very neat optimization i found in the meantime is DISM cleanup, which is an integrated windows tool.
i schedule it with windows task scheduler to run weekly on sunday, as somewhen friday/saturday windows pushes new updates.
dism cleans up the leftover update files and deletes obsolete stuff, then merges and compresses the new windows image. very sad that this is not done by default by microsoft themselves.. saves me roughly 3-5GB after every big update =less access time as files are merged into bigger ones.

here is the task for task scheduler if you want to have a look:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-16"?>
<Task version="1.4" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/windows/2004/02/mit/task">
  <RegistrationInfo>
    <Date>2019-06-02T16:23:04.1488655</Date>
    <Author>backamblock_for_aspkin</Author>
    <URI>\dism_cleanup</URI>
  </RegistrationInfo>
  <Triggers>
    <CalendarTrigger>
      <StartBoundary>2019-06-02T16:20:11</StartBoundary>
      <ExecutionTimeLimit>P3D</ExecutionTimeLimit>
      <Enabled>true</Enabled>
      <ScheduleByWeek>
        <DaysOfWeek>
          <Sunday />
        </DaysOfWeek>
        <WeeksInterval>1</WeeksInterval>
      </ScheduleByWeek>
    </CalendarTrigger>
  </Triggers>
  <Principals>
    <Principal id="Author">
      <UserId>removed</UserId>
      <LogonType>InteractiveToken</LogonType>
      <RunLevel>HighestAvailable</RunLevel>
    </Principal>
  </Principals>
  <Settings>
    <MultipleInstancesPolicy>StopExisting</MultipleInstancesPolicy>
    <DisallowStartIfOnBatteries>false</DisallowStartIfOnBatteries>
    <StopIfGoingOnBatteries>true</StopIfGoingOnBatteries>
    <AllowHardTerminate>true</AllowHardTerminate>
    <StartWhenAvailable>true</StartWhenAvailable>
    <RunOnlyIfNetworkAvailable>false</RunOnlyIfNetworkAvailable>
    <IdleSettings>
      <StopOnIdleEnd>true</StopOnIdleEnd>
      <RestartOnIdle>false</RestartOnIdle>
    </IdleSettings>
    <AllowStartOnDemand>true</AllowStartOnDemand>
    <Enabled>true</Enabled>
    <Hidden>true</Hidden>
    <RunOnlyIfIdle>false</RunOnlyIfIdle>
    <DisallowStartOnRemoteAppSession>false</DisallowStartOnRemoteAppSession>
    <UseUnifiedSchedulingEngine>true</UseUnifiedSchedulingEngine>
    <WakeToRun>false</WakeToRun>
    <ExecutionTimeLimit>PT72H</ExecutionTimeLimit>
    <Priority>7</Priority>
  </Settings>
  <Actions Context="Author">
    <Exec>
      <Command>Dism.exe</Command>
      <Arguments>/online /Cleanup-Image /StartComponentCleanup</Arguments>
    </Exec>
    <Exec>
      <Command>Dism.exe</Command>
      <Arguments>/online /Cleanup-Image /StartComponentCleanup /ResetBase</Arguments>
    </Exec>
    <Exec>
      <Command>Dism.exe</Command>
      <Arguments>/online /Cleanup-Image /SPSuperseded</Arguments>
    </Exec>
    <Exec>
      <Command>Compact.exe</Command>
      <Arguments>/CompactOS:always</Arguments>
    </Exec>
  </Actions>
</Task>

copy this into editor and save it to your desired name, then change the extension to .xml
then you go to task scheduler and import task, select the file, now the window will open, click on "change user" as i removed my username obviously. in the text box enter your windows username and click on "verify name" and accept/select your user.
the buttons might be labelled slightly different for you as i am using the german version of windows.

ATTENTION: if you have plenty of free space available and do not care about some GB more consumed by your windows install, go to actions tab and REMOVE the "compactOS: always" line
this is only in there for my VMs or systems with very little storage (64GB or less) the difference between compressed (~11gb) and uncompressed (~13gb) windows is not worth the speed loss if you dont need that 2GB free storage gain!

and while you are here with task scheduler, have a look on w10privacy website to add it as a task to run daily and on login/startup as well, as windows decided to do updates earlier one week and set it to "restart automaticaly after updates" again, which killed one of my bot-vms and lost me nearly 2k€ -.-

----
windows store...
although i don't like it, you might see this different. you will find more than one way to get the store on w10 LTSC, but i can highly recommend this github page:
https://github.com/kkkgo/LTSC-Add-MicrosoftStore
he also has a version of this package for LTSB version, a quick google will find

so thats it for this post. again, i hope some of you might find it helpful.
if you have questions OR IMPROVEMENTS, please share them with me.
there is always something that can be optimized
have a great day

[Andyvn]

Looks cool. Used to run Ubuntu guests on Win 10 host. Will do the reverse to see if I can get nay performance gain.
Thank you

[backamblock]

Originally Posted by Andyvn

Looks cool. Used to run Ubuntu guests on Win 10 host. Will do the reverse to see if I can get nay performance gain.
Thank you

for w10ltsb guest on manjaro/arch, i found the performance inside the VM with virtualbox to feel as performant as running on bare metal. be sure to use the virtIO drivers for everything, you'll get an iso and instructions in the proxmox wiki