Windows 10

Windows 10 is, as of July 2015, the newest iteration of Microsoft's desktop operating systems. The primary draw of Windows 10 over the much more reliable and less shit 7 is DirectX 12, which will make supported games better with stuff. Wangblows 10 also comes with Cortana, the meme-tier personal assistant and botnet waifu who is only fun for the first five minutes of use and effectively useless afterward.

Installation

This section will cover installing Windows 10 from scratch and NOT cover upgrading from an existing windows 7/8/8.1 install. If you have an existing Windows 7/8/8.1 install, you can still use this section, but be aware that you'll lose all your installed apps and data with a fresh install.

If you want to do a test run of installing Windows 10, without committing your hard drive to it, setup a VirtualBox and skip ahead to the Installation section.

Pre Install Prep

To install Windows 10 we'll need a few things:

• The Windows 10 disc image (.iso file).
  • This can be sourced directly from microsoft.com here. You'll need to enable javascript. This link will likely disappear after Aug 2016, when win10 is no longer free).
    • If you're planning on pirating Windows 10, you need the Profession version or above.
    • If the above link no longer works (i.e. Microsoft have stopped supplying an official win10 iso publicly) you can always look for a copy on KAT or TPB. Look for something which includes the official updates up until today (whatever month/year this is) and perhaps avoid isos that install lots of Super Kewl Appz and generally fuck with the source.
• A utility to install the Windows 10 image to a usb stick for installation (Try rufus).
• Backups of your data.
• An install kit, which will contain:
  • Drivers for your hardware that are compatible with Windows 10. If you can't find a specific Windows 10 driver, grab the Windows 8.1 driver and cross your fingers. If you're super cautious (which is fine) wait until your hardware manufacturer releases Windows 10 drivers.
  • Common programs you use (e.g. your media player, your compression utility, your browser).

Once you have the .iso file, use a spare usb flash drive and Rufus to create a usb installer.

Installation Prep

Plug in your usb installer drive and reboot. Jump into bios with f1 or del (or whatever you're told to on the first screen your computer displays as it boots).

Inside bios, you need to set the Boot Order to boot from your usb stick. If you're on legacy "bios" boot, this is just a matter of putting the usb stick ahead of your other drives in the Boot Priority. If you're using efi/uefi, do something else within bios that hopefully another anon will edit over the top of this sentence.

With your bios settings set, save and exit bios (it will force your to reboot, which is what you want).

Installation

Once bios hands over control to your boot device (your usb stick) you may get a message to hit any key to boot from usb. Hit a key if you see this button.

The Windows 10 install process will begin:

• The first screen, which has a lovely purple background, will have a window asking for your language (English (United States)), your Time and Currency Format (English (United States)) and your Keyboard or input method (US). Set the Time and Currency Format to your region (and anything else if you want a non english install) and hit the Next button in the bottom right.
• Hit the Install Now button.
• After a short pause, you'll be presented with the product key window. This wants your product key, but we can worry about that later, so hit Skip.
• If your .iso has multiple versions of Windows 10 available, the next screen will allow you to choose which version of Windows 10 you install (Home, Pro, etc) and what architecture version you want (x64, unless you're on a toaster).
  • If you're some kind of pirate scumbag, select Pro or above.
• The license terms screen is next. Kiss your first born goodbye and pray to Buddha, click I accept the license terms, and hit Next.
• Next is the "type of installation you want" screen. You always want Custom. So click it.
• Next is the partition screen. This is the most serious screen of the install, so be careful here:
  • You need two partitions:
    • A boot ("System Reserved") partition of about 350mb (the installer will force you to make this).
    • A partition of 15gb+ to install Windows 10 to (this will become c: drive).
  • If the drive is empty, just make a new parition and follow the prompts.
  • If you're installing over the top of win7/8.1, format your old c: drive.
  • If you have linux paritions, don't touch them unless you want windows to format them and destroy all your data. (Windows may still destroy your grub-bios install, but that's easily reinstalled with a quick boot into your linux install usb, chrooting to your installation, and # grub-install --target=i386-pc --recheck ; grub-mkconfig -o /boot-grub/grub.cfg).
  • With your new c: drive selected, hit Next.
• Windows will copy the install files. This will take 5mins or so from a usb.

How to debloat

In administrator powershell run:
Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers -Name Microsoft.3DBuilder | Remove-AppxPackage
Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers -Name Microsoft.Getstarted | Remove-AppxPackage
Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers -Name Microsoft.MicrosoftOfficeHub | Remove-AppxPackage
Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers -Name Microsoft.MicrosoftSolitaireCollection | Remove-AppxPackage
Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers -Name Microsoft.SkypeApp | Remove-AppxPackage
Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers -Name Microsoft.WindowsMaps | Remove-AppxPackage
Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers -Name Microsoft.BingWeather | Remove-AppxPackage
Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers -Name Microsoft.Office.OneNote | Remove-AppxPackage
Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers -Name Microsoft.XboxApp | Remove-AppxPackage
Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers -Name Microsoft.ZuneMusic | Remove-AppxPackage
Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers -Name Microsoft.ZuneVideo | Remove-AppxPackage
Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers -Name Microsoft.BingSports | Remove-AppxPackage
Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers -Name Microsoft.BingNews | Remove-AppxPackage
Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers -Name Microsoft.WindowsPhone | Remove-AppxPackage
Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers -Name Microsoft.BingFinance | Remove-AppxPackage
Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers -Name Microsoft.WindowsSoundRecorder | Remove-AppxPackage
Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers -Name Microsoft.Windows.Photos | Remove-AppxPackage
Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers -Name Microsoft.WindowsCamera | Remove-AppxPackage
Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers -Name Microsoft.WindowsAlarms | Remove-AppxPackage
Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers -Name Microsoft.People | Remove-AppxPackage
Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers -Name Microsoft.MicrosoftEdge | Remove-AppxPackage
Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers -Name Microsoft.WindowsCalculator | Remove-AppxPackage
Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers -Name microsoft.windowscommunicationsapps | Remove-AppxPackage

to get rid of the shit

How to stop tracking

this may work, if Microsoft doesn't ignore the hosts file for their own shit (I wouldn't put it past them). try it anyway and report results. in your hosts file, add these lines:
0.0.0.0 vortex.data.microsoft.com
0.0.0.0 vortex-win.data.microsoft.com
0.0.0.0 telecommand.telemetry.microsoft.com
0.0.0.0 telecommand.telemetry.microsoft.com.nsatc.net
0.0.0.0 oca.telemetry.microsoft.com
0.0.0.0 oca.telemetry.microsoft.com.nsatc.net
0.0.0.0 sqm.telemetry.microsoft.com
0.0.0.0 sqm.telemetry.microsoft.com.nsatc.net
0.0.0.0 watson.telemetry.microsoft.com
0.0.0.0 watson.telemetry.microsoft.com.nsatc.net
0.0.0.0 redir.metaservices.microsoft.com
0.0.0.0 choice.microsoft.com
0.0.0.0 choice.microsoft.com.nsatc.net
0.0.0.0 df.telemetry.microsoft.com
0.0.0.0 reports.wes.df.telemetry.microsoft.com
0.0.0.0 services.wes.df.telemetry.microsoft.com
0.0.0.0 sqm.df.telemetry.microsoft.com
0.0.0.0 telemetry.microsoft.com
0.0.0.0 watson.ppe.telemetry.microsoft.com
0.0.0.0 telemetry.appex.bing.net
0.0.0.0 telemetry.urs.microsoft.com
0.0.0.0 telemetry.appex.bing.net:443
0.0.0.0 settings-sandbox.data.microsoft.com
0.0.0.0 vortex-sandbox.data.microsoft.com
it might even work