Question about Windows10 Update 21H1

[nickh66]

Hi everyone,
This is really a question for the BI team directly but in case someone else has some experience to share, that would be great.
I was getting ready to update my BI box to the latest 21H1 update for Windows10 & thought i would check first if anyone has done this yet and if anyone has experienced any issues.
I wondered if the BI team has performed any testing of their own on 21H1 yet to check for potential issues.
Cheers
Nick

[TimG]

Hi nickh66,

This is mainly a user to user help forum - other than the specific support threads - so best to send an email if you want an official response. Have you heard of issues with 21H1 ?

I lock my pc's down until I can fix any issues and have them backed up in case of disaster, but I love a challenge. Presently all running 20H2. I will have a check if I can update to 21H1...

Nope. "Throttled availability" so not in the backwaters of the UK yet. I don't think I'll go searching for it as I need to defrost a freezer. What we need is a volunteer to try it

[SolarEclipse]

Just force applied the 21H1 update onto my system (a virtual machine) and so far so good.

[TimG]

Thanks for the feedback. And my freezer is looking good too

[Thixotropic]

It's funny you should mention 21H1, I just used the MSMG Toolkit to make a stripped down Win 10 ISO to install on my soon-to-be-refreshed BI box.

I took out allllll the crap- Cortana, all the XBox junk, telemetry, all the OOBE crap, the User Experience garbage, and a ton of other stuff.

The install disk went from 5.3Gb to about 4.2Gb, knocked out more than a gigabyte of pure bloat. Well worth the ~30 mins or so to do it.

I'm scheduling the refresh for later this week or maybe this weekend and I'm eager to see how it goes.

[TimG]

I've just done the 21H1 update on one of my Win10 servers running BI5, and all is well.

[MikeBwca]

Why are the new Windows versions sounding like Covid variants!

[Thixotropic]

Here's some of the screens from MSMG Toolkit showing some of the stuff you can completely obliterate from a Windows install. Since it's the source disk it makes a cleaner install, and none of this stuff is going to mysteriously come back through an update (supposedly).
-
Cortana, GONE. XBox crap, GONE. Windows Store, Solitaire, Screen Sketch, Advertising, 3D bullsh*t...all GONE.

Remove_Win_Apps.png (66.72 KiB) Viewed 8596 times

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What's next?
Content Delivery junk, Eye Control, Narrator, Smart Screen, Retail Demo, Azure junk, Edge Developer tools, Facial Recognition, etc etc all GONE.

Remove_System_Apps.png (59.75 KiB) Viewed 8596 times

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Finally, get rid of telemetry and other privacy-breaching junk.
Unified Telemetry Client, Location Service, Windows Insider cruft...GONE.

Remove_Privacy_apps.png (27.94 KiB) Viewed 8596 times

-

There's more, but you get the idea. Rip all that garbage out and be done with it once and for all. All this crap runs in the background and sucks up memory and CPU cycles.

The fact is that I'm never ever going to connect an XBox to this PC, so why have the XBox junk running 24/7 eating up memory? I'm never going to use the Retail Demo or the Edge Developer tools, why waste my CPU on them? And so on...

You can also add stuff to the ISO and integrate it into the install. For example, if you wanted to include an install for SnagIt or Teamviewer or GIMP or whatever, you can do it and make a custom-tailored install disk with all the goodies that you normally install after Windows.

[TimG]

No solitaire

I've used a few of these things over the years, the last one being debloater. I can feel a Win10 re-install coming up this year

[Thixotropic]

I've used a few of these things over the years, the last one being debloater. I can feel a Win10 re-install coming up this year

I've used Debloater and it's pretty good. I'm not sure, but I understand that it won't always prevent things like Cortana from coming back. I can't say for certain yet but since the MSMG tool makes a new install manifest, my understanding is that it's more locked down in terms of updates restoring unwanted stuff. We'll see...

Debloater is good because you can use it after installing Windows and you can re-run it as needed. I think you can script it to do an automated debloat and then task it to run regularly, once a month, or every Sunday or whatever you want.

I going to swap the current spinning HDD with a cheap 1Tb SSD that I just got this morning. It should be an easy transfer but if not then I'll just reinstall the system again on the SSD. Start to finish, the Win 10 + BI + configuration and setup took less than an hour, it'll probably go a little faster with the SSD.

And although this is off-topic a bit, is there a way to force BI to load as a service and then also open the GUI?