| 100% agree. Looking at just the block-telemetry.ps1 script in this repo tells me the creator is a novice. Changing the Group Policy does NOT block telemetry in Win10 Home or Pro. Furthermore, adding MS's own domains to the hosts file or firewall aren't great techniques either, since the OS doesn't have to honor them and those domains may serve other functions. In disable-services.ps1: - Home Groups was discontinued and these services aren't installed by default anymore. Even if they are present, the default config is manual and they'll use zero resources if you don't have a HomeGroup set up - Futzing with remote access services is a minefield and could kill VPNs, network shares/printers, and domain access. It's one piece in a set of dependencies that might be okay to disable, but tends to pop up in unexpected situations. RaRA is disabled by default, so if it is enabled, there is probably a reason. - Distributed Link Tracking Client - I mean, I like my shortcuts working, but okay. - Windows Security Center Service - Disabling this basically makes it harder for you to actually access the security center and will break 3rd party AV/firewall/security tools. - Xbox services - Disabling kills any games bought via the Windows Store and possibly controllers. Doesn't use resources, since it's set to manual. Almost everything else the scripts say they're doing can be done within the Settings app. I phrased it that way because the toggles may be changing multiple settings to get the desired effect and changing a single registry value isn't enough. There are some sound tweaks mixed in (some that I use myself), but nothing new and nothing to make me think the author is particularly knowledgeable about Windows configurations. I prefer something like http://www.blackviper.com/ I wanted to add that I've been pretty heavily tweaking Windows since the Win9x days, and modern Windows is a different beast compared to even Win7. Lots of services and features have not-so-obvious dependencies. For example, the Your Phone App can't be uninstalled via normal means, but there are plenty of articles that detail the steps to uninstall it with Powershell. The problem is that this app also hooks into the experience continuity features MS is pushing heavily, and forcing an uninstall will cause issues with syncing settings across devices and the timeline feature. Also worth noting is that simply undoing some tweaks isn't always straightforward. Delete a registry entry? Hope you noted that it was owned by Installer, because adding it back as owned by admin ain't gonna cut it. Lastly, 90%+ of the tweak guides/scripts I've seen would completely break programming IDEs, VPN access, and systems on a corporate network. They assume you want everything stripped and will add back individual pieces as situations present themselves, but it never works out that way. Instead, the whole process approaching those situations gets borked (e.g.- program checks for a service at launch, can't find it, and closes immediately or dumps the user into some config that's not appropriate once they untweak their OS). Most of my tweaking now is simply changing settings, disabling a few scheduled tasks and services I'm familiar with, and making a couple dozen registry changes that are reversible and not tied to vital components. |