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My Windows 11 Pro Post-Installation Notes

Windows 11 Logo

Intro

Here we are again… New Windows, new environment to clean up. With every new iteration, Microsoft introduces its share of challenges. In this guide, I'll document all my insights on refining the user experience of Windows 11 right after a fresh installation. We will see how to customize the Search Box, disable Bing, remove Built-In Apps, disable Cortana, clean up the Windows Menu, and possibly more!

Clean The Start Menu

Despite having the Pro version, the Windows 11 Start Menu tends to be cluttered with commercial, gaming, and unnecessary apps. We will see how to clean up with a script to make it works in an Active Directory environment.

  • Begin from a fresh installation of Windows 11 to manually remove unwanted applications from the Start Menu:
Windows 11 Start menu before and after cleaning xbox, spotify and whatsapp applications

Once cleaned, copy the file c:\Users\YOUR_USERNAME\AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.Windows.StartMenuExperienceHost_cw5n1h2txyewy\LocalState\start2.bin to a shared folder (here in \\SHARE\ for the example), then copy the file to your Windows 11 computers AD domain.

  • For the example we can use this PowerShell command (with current user rights):
C:\Users\user> Copy-Item -Path \\SHARE\start2.bin -Destination c:\Users\$env:USERNAME\AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.Windows.StartMenuExperienceHost_cw5n1h2txyewy\LocalState\start2.bin

Note: the computer must be restarted for the change to take effect.

In this section, we'll look at how to remove Bing Search and reduce the size of the search icon in the taskbar.

Note: click here to know how to do it via GPO.

Bing Search Bar

  • Open a terminal with current user rights and type:
C:\Users\user> reg add HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Search\ /f /v BingSearchEnabled /t REG_DWORD /d 0 Windows 11 search bar before and after bing removal

Note: Restart session to see changes.

Search Bar Mode

  • Launch a terminal with the current user rights and enter the following command:
C:\Users\user> reg add HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Search\ /f /v SearchboxTaskbarMode /t REG_DWORD /d 1 Windows 11 search bar in icon mode and full text mode

Disable Cortana

  • From the Group Policy editor, go to Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Search and disable "Allow Cortana" policy
Windows GPO to disable Cortana

Clean Task Bar

  • From the Group Policy editor, go to Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Widgets > Allow widgets and set to Disable
Windows 11 desktops with and without the presence of the taskbar widget

Remove Windows Built-In Apps

  • Create a c:\remove_app.ps1 file:
Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers | ? { $_.Name -match "windowsalarms" } | Remove-AppxPackage -AllUsers Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers | ? { $_.Name -match "windowscommunicationsapps" } | Remove-AppxPackage -AllUsers Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers | ? { $_.Name -match "windowscamera" } | Remove-AppxPackage -AllUsers #Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers | ? { $_.Name -match "windowsCalculator" } | Remove-AppxPackage -AllUsers Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers | ? { $_.Name -match "officehub" } | Remove-AppxPackage -AllUsers Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers | ? { $_.Name -match "getstarted" } | Remove-AppxPackage -AllUsers Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers | ? { $_.Name -match "zunemusic" } | Remove-AppxPackage -AllUsers Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers | ? { $_.Name -match "windowsmaps" } | Remove-AppxPackage -AllUsers Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers | ? { $_.Name -match "solitairecollection" } | Remove-AppxPackage -AllUsers Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers | ? { $_.Name -match "zunevideo" } | Remove-AppxPackage -AllUsers Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers | ? { $_.Name -match "bingnews" } | Remove-AppxPackage -AllUsers Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers | ? { $_.Name -match "Microsoft.People" } | Remove-AppxPackage -AllUsers #Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers | ? { $_.Name -match "photos" } | Add-AppxPackage -AllUsers #Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers | ? { $_.Name -match "windowsstore" } | Remove-AppxPackage -AllUsers Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers | ? { $_.Name -match "soundrecorder" } | Remove-AppxPackage -AllUsers Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers | ? { $_.Name -match "bingweather" } | Remove-AppxPackage -AllUsers Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers | ? { $_.Name -match "Microsoft.MicrosoftOfficeHub" } | Remove-AppxPackage -AllUsers Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers | ? { $_.Name -match "Microsoft.WindowsFeedbackHub" } | Remove-AppxPackage -AllUsers Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers | ? { $_.Name -match "YourPhone" } | Remove-AppxPackage -AllUsers Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers | ? { $_.Name -match "Microsoft.XboxGamingOverlay" } | Remove-AppxPackage -AllUsers Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers | ? { $_.Name -match "gethelp" } | Remove-AppxPackage -AllUsers #XBOX Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers | ? { $_.Name -match "Microsoft.Xbox.TCUI" } | Remove-AppxPackage -AllUsers Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers | ? { $_.Name -match "Microsoft.XboxGameOverlay" } | Remove-AppxPackage -AllUsers Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers | ? { $_.Name -match "Microsoft.XboxIdentityProvider" } | Remove-AppxPackage -AllUsers Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers | ? { $_.Name -match "Microsoft.XboxSpeechToTextOverlay" } | Remove-AppxPackage -AllUsers Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers | ? { $_.Name -match "xbox" } | Remove-AppxPackage -AllUsers
  • Execute the PowerShell script from the command line as an Administrator:
C:\Windows\system32> powershell.exe -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File c:\remove_app.ps1

Remove every Xbox Built-In Apps

There are a lot of Xbox Built-In Apps so let's see how to remove them.

  • Run it from PowerShell command line and as Administrator:
PS C:\Windows\system32> foreach ($app in $(Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers | ? { $_.Name -match "xbox" })) { $app | Remove-AppxPackage -AllUsers }
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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