Windows 10 Decrapifier Powershell Script

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I belong to an IT “pro” community called Spiceworks. A member, CSAND, developed a nice script to remove bloatware from Windows 10. I just used it for my new Cantabile backup laptop.

Here’s a description:

Eliminate much of the bloat that comes with Windows 10. Change many privacy settings to be off by default. Remove built-in advertising, Cortana, OneDrive, Cortana stuff (all optional). Disable some data collection.

Clean up the start menu for new user accounts. Remove a bunch of pre-installed apps, or all of them (including the store). Create a more professional looking W10 experience. Changes some settings no longer available via GPO for Professional edition.

If a non IT person is going to run it I need to create a help sheet as it involves some knowledge of the Powershell which is built into Windows 10.

You can read about it here:
https://community.spiceworks.com/scripts/show_download/4378-windows-10-decrapifier-1803-1809

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Sounds interesting. A simple cheat sheet of how to run it in the shell would be useful. I am assuming there are some command line options to feed in, depending on how much crap you wish to get rid of?

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I will do some screenshots with explanation. There are switches. You can whitelist some of the apps. Warning - there is one parameter called something like -All that even gets rid of the Microsoft store which people recommend against because it’s hard to reverse that.

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Is there a good reason for keeping the store if you never intend to buy from it?

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That was my thought- I’d be happy to see it go. I never have used it once.

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The main warning against removing it is that among all the changes the script can make that particular change can’t be reversed - I’ll try to find out if removing it even lowers overhead. I’m doing another machine right now and with screen shots as I go.

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Cool- I appreciate the due diligence but myself, I think on a Cantabile machine I’d delete Store in a heartbeat.

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Ha - I was using OneNote to make the steps on the machine I was running the script on. When I ran the script OneNote was deleted. I have all the screenshots with note overlays - will just take a few minutes to recreate and post here.

EDIT - App was deleted but my note was still there! Used the store to put OneNote back (I use it for music notes)

The store lets you put something back if you change your mind about what you got rid of. There is some way to hack it back in.

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Dropbox - win10_decrapifier_powershell.zip and Helpsheet

I found a link about how to reinstall the Windows 10 Store:
https://www.intowindows.com/how-to-reinstall-store-and-other-preinstalled-apps-in-windows-10/

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Thanks. Will try out some time in the next few weeks and report back (after doing a system image first!)

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If you intend to get Midiberry to run bluetooth midi in windows, I believe you need the ms store. Not sure entirely.

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I recommend that you run the script the first leaving just Store in “GoodApps”. Maybe get rid of it later once we know more about all ramifications. Not sure our Cantabile machines should be the guinea pig for that. I’m researching it further.

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I tested the uploads here on a third computer and found that the powershell script in the zip file had a dash in the name which was causing an issue. It’s fixed now.

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