Introduction

This is what I do when I want to install Windows and get it up and running real quick. It’s not too difficult. Let’s get to work.

You want to split this into three phases:

  1. Windows installation
  2. Debloating the system
  3. Installation of utilities and software

Phase 1: Windows installation

You will notice in phase one that these days Microsoft forces you to use a Windows account (like a Microsoft account) when logging in. So what do you do to mitigate this?

  1. Don’t connect to the network.

  2. Just before the “let’s connect you to a network” stage, click Shift and F10 together.

  3. Type the following and hit enter:

    start ms-cxh:localonly

  4. It should then prompt you with the option to create a local user account.

  5. Once you fill that in, restart.

  6. Click no to all the privacy prompts: location, diagnostics, apps using your data, and so on. This prevents access of the OS to this information.

You have phase one complete.

Phase 2: Debloating

In phase two, you can use a debloating script. There are a lot of these online, and some of them may not be safe to run. My personal favorite method:

  • Look for one of the popular tools on GitHub.
  • Get the entire source code.
  • Compile what debloating aspects you need into a PowerShell script that suits your requirements.

Once you have done that you can then proceed to the third section.

Phase 3: Installation of utilities and software

For this, I absolutely love the command line because it makes it incredibly easy. I’ve included an excerpt section of my install script (also a PowerShell script). It is just a bunch of winget commands that will install all your utilities for you.

An excerpt of what the script looks like:

powershell -Command "Get-AppxPackage *xboxapp* | Remove-AppxPackage"
powershell -Command "Get-AppxPackage *xboxgamingoverlay* | Remove-AppxPackage"

winget install -e --id Oracle.JDK.21
winget install -e --id Python.Python.3.12
winget install -e --id JGraph.Draw

So essentially you have Windows up and running in a couple of PowerShell scripts. The only manual section with this would be some of your chipset drivers, your graphic drivers, or maybe some of your network drivers. These are things that you can get installed pretty quick, because they will be minimal compared to the massive automation you have done through winget.

Hope this helps.

References