OneDrive is built into W10 and can be installed on earlier versions.

[rant]

Right, lets put this nonsense to bed once and for all shall we?

Paranoid eh? I’ve a gmail account in my full name, my android phone and tablet are linked to it as is Google Photo's, which automatically backs up every photograph I take and shares them with the world. A Google maps timeline often shows where I've been and a Google Drive account holds my documents in the cloud. I use Chrome logged into my account, so every keystroke I enter into Google, or website I visit is logged and associated with my user ID. Heck if it didn't cost 8 quid a month I'd have my entire 1.4TB music library in the cloud!

The problem as I see it is you're equating how you use your PC with how others do and they're clearly different. You invest a lot of time, money and effort setting up your TBS for music, I do the same for my Windows music/movie media PC – this one of my three desktop machines does nothing but play music and serve films to my projector. We both know that unnecessary Windows services running in the background have an impact on performance, in particular sound quality. I think you’d be annoyed if every now and again your nicely setup TBS was hijacked by an update you didn't choose to install and you had to start over – perhaps you enjoy doing unnecessary maintenance, I don’t. It's why I've been looking at Linux, Roon and Volumio again, I'm getting fed up with forced updates.

My media server is headless in a largish midi sized tower and it's a lot of faff moving it to connect a monitor, keyboard and mouse to change anything. I could remote in, but I like to keep the installs minimal. I don't need updates on it from a security aspect and I should IMO be allowed to choose when/if I need an update, especially a feature update. I'd happily pay for that privilege too. This was possible with 7 and 8, it's not anymore, or not easily. I used to leave those installs alone for many months and their performance never altered, nor was I ever delayed waiting for the bugger to finish an update. Even if I go to the trouble of imaging the boot drive, as soon as I connect to the internet it gets sabotaged and it has to go online to stream films and music. It’s really irritating that after taking the time and trouble to set up a PC how I want it, Microsoft throws an oft dodgy update out there which can compromise it.

It's too controlling, leaving no easy way for a user to hang on to a fully customised installation - I'm astonished you think that's OK?

Feature updates are notoriously problematic, so we’re the guinea pigs. That to me is lazy software development, instead of ironing out the bugs before release they forcibly throw it out there, wait for the problems to get reported back and then fix them instead of getting it right prior to release. What’s the Windows Insider program for? This strategy has often caused data loss or inoperable machines. I’m sure a lot of those users wouldn't have updated by choice? I know, it's happened to me once and it shouldn’t happen so regularly - ver 2004 is a case in point. In the days of Windows 95 okay, but not now. You might have been OK with your update, but a lot of people weren’t.

An early ISO of Win10 was 3.05GB, now a Win10 2004 ISO is 4.90GB. That's a lot more bloatware and crap, as the functionality is very similar - it should be getting leaner and more efficient not more bloated. And it matters not how powerful your machine is, the activity going on in the background does effect performance. If I have a powerful machine I have an expectation it’ll perform to it's full potential and maintain that, yes I’m a geek and I check that stuff, so it matters to me. Just look at game frame rates drop when telemetry and other data gathering kicks in, which is easily checked with task manager. If the O/S wasn't doing all the bollocks it does in the background people wouldn't need such powerful computers, just try out a modern version of Ubuntu or Mint to see how fricking awful the performance hit is from Win10 these days? They are becoming more like Apple everyday and personally I think that’s bad - we should be able to maintain some element of control over how we use our own personal technology if we want to and not be forced into accepting every decision/change they decide on. That's a very slippery slope and MS have had their wrists slapped by the EU before, they need challenging again as forced updates are too stringent and potentially damaging to productivity, we should have a choice.

If that's the definition of paranoia then I might need a new dictionary  

[/rant]

Haha, forced updates really tick me off - I think I mentioned that right?

Thanks for Bloatbox

Could a not that technical punter like me use it without danger or mess ups ?

ShutUp10 is quite an easy tool to use Mike - www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10 Just use the recommended settings if you try it?

I've not tried Bloatbox, I run scripts to strip my Win10 installs, but I wouldn't recommend running scripts on a daily driver machine, unless you knew how to image the drive first, so you can guarantee going back if something doesn't work afterwards. Imaging can be achieved easily these days with something like Macrium which is free for a home user, or Acronis True Image which is a paid for application - there are free trials for Acronis. Macrium is easy to use, just accept the default suggestions. 

Here's some script info if you are interested - christitus.com/debloat-windows-10-2020/

I can vouch for Chris Titus, his work is sound.

The only thing I would say is do you really need to do any of the above? I have many reasons for not liking Windows 10, but I'm not your average user. I used to be a forensic computer examiner, so have issues over the security and vulnerability of Windows as an operating system. Most people won't have my mindset or probably understand why I don't like the direction Microsoft is taking it (or care), which is understandable.

So I would think first about fiddling with it before taking the plunge

Of course, as soon as you run a feature update, most of your work gets undone anyway  

It wouldn't harm learning to use Macrium, then you could fiddle away to your hearts content if you had either an image or clone of your Win10 boot drive.

If that's the only reason Mike, then to be honest I don't really think it would be worth the potential headache if something went wrong.

I only run scripts on my music/media server, my daily driver just has everything turned off and uninstalled from within Windows. Scripts are a very aggressive approach, but for sound quality they do make quite a difference.

ShutUp10 is very straightforward though and easily undone.

You know it makes sense

Hi Tim

I simply used Roon Rock as an end point (not Core).  I really can't say there is any difference between Rock and Win10.  Rock ran fine. 


Machine is a self build based on a Mini-ITX fanless motherboard using the Intel Bay Trail.  This motherboard has a low TDP (ideal for streaming).  I disable telemetry and bloat not for speed purposes but to reduce background processes which potentially (and in fact does) impacts the audio path.  I feed the motherboard with 12v from a linear PSU (Paul Hynes boards) and have a dedicated USB board (Paul Pang) fed with 5v from the Linear PSU. Ethernet input filtered with a SOTM filter.  Sounds pretty ok to me. 

We'll agree to disagree with the first part. If you want a secure OS, W10 is flawed compared to most Linux distros that don't have the back doors Windows has.

But Server 2019, can't argue with that, a Windows O/S without the bloat, I'd use it in a heartbeat over 10 if it was feasible or affordable for a home user.

So yes, that's a very good OS. 

Are you on their payroll