Despite my previous post Should we stop wanting to hack-install Win11 on older CPUs?, in which I established that Win11 would be a better fit for my newer Acer, and my old Acer from 2016 should become a test bed for Linux, what happened was the exact opposite: the faster Acer still runs a Linux distro, while the venerable one now runs Win11 IoT!

I didn’t really have this planned. But an unexpected inconvenience (its battery became a pufferfish and had to be replaced) made me consider that, once this shit happened, what the heck: let’s go all the way! Or, rather, go big or go home!

Besides, I wanted to see whether the IoT editions of Win11 truly have no TPM requirement (indeed, they don’t have any). I don’t trust Rufus, and I found FlyOOBE (ex-Flyby11) completely uninspiring. The only no-nonsense option was to use one of the two IoT ISOs I already had, namely Windows 11 IoT Enterprise LTSC 2024 (26100.1742). Ventoy is your daddy!

Out-of-the-box bonus: the IoT editions come without the horrendous bloat all the other Windows editions come with! They even lack the Microsoft Store, and so far I didn’t try to install it; while testing Windows 10 IoT Enterprise LTSC 2021 (19044.1288), getting Microsoft Store was a bit problematic (but it worked in the end).

As a side note: MakeWindowsGreatAgain could be very useful to debloat standard Win11 editions; it’s of very limited use in IoT. Make sure you examine the cleaning script and the restoring script before running them.

Win11 not being designed to support such an older system, it lacks some drivers, such as the one for the Intel® Rapid Storage Technology. Fortunately, Acer’s drivers for Win10 work perfectly in Win11. But the real luck is that the primary SSD was detected even without this driver, which was only required for the secondary SSD! (The first one uses M.2 2280 but is SATA, not NVMe; the second one is a regular 2.5” SATA.)

❶ Starting on the right foot

Win11 IoT is not meant for personal use, so it won’t accept a normal Microsoft Outlook account during the initial setup; therefore, you must force a local account by not connecting to any access point. Later, syncing with your Microsoft account will be possible, unless your nickname is Dedoimedo.

While I had the entire collection of Massgrave.dev activation scripts, I didn’t need it. Their magic one-liner worked perfectly in PowerShell:

irm https://get.activated.win | iex

True magic, believe me. One can’t get any better.

My main gripe with Win11 is not the retarded start menu and taskbar. It’s not the dumber File Explorer. Nor is it the choice of round corners that cannot be disabled for unmaximized windows. It’s the fact that Windows Defender cannot be disabled anymore in Win11!

In Win10 IoT, I disabled it and suggested the Comodo Firewall to wussy scaredy-cats. CFW reacts when a binary tries to access sensitive system areas, when a binary tries to access the Internet, and in many other cases when a behavioral security suite is what you should want. I also mentioned that SmartScreen and a few other Defender features still work even if the Virus & threat protection is completely castrated.

Well, no more in Win11. I tried all the extra methods that worked under Win10, but Win11 kept reactivating the so-called Virus & threat protection. This is not just about Tamper Protection. Also, WinDefend is a critical service: it cannot be disabled, it can not be uninstalled; Win11 cannot run without it! And I have two objections to Windows Defender:

  • It slows down the system, especially on low-end CPUs.
  • It quarantines more than it should. Everything that might or might not be a patch, a keygen, or merely a “non-conventional” binary gets automatically quarantined.

Most “security solutions” (AV in common language) are huge piles of useless shit. They’re based on signatures, which is so 1990. And when they don’t understand a packed binary, they hallucinate that it’s some sort of “generic Trojan” with a made-up name. Pathetic. Moreover, with absolutely all such security solutions (bar one), they would quarantine or delete some binaries without asking the user, despite being configured to the contrary! Just like Defender, they truly believe I am one of the 98% (99.8% by some counts) of retards on this planet. But I’m not.

Enter Kaspersky. Yes, I know, Uncle Sam said that Kaspersky is Putin. And that Huawei is Xi. Fuck Uncle Sam! Yes, even Sleepy Joe was a retard, not just Donald Trump.

  • Kaspersky has the lowest rate of false positives among all mainstream security solutions!
  • Kaspersky is the only AV that either whitelists some patches, keygens, or similar “special binaries,” or detects them with names that start with “Not-a-virus:”!
  • Kaspersky is also the only AV that, in my experience, never deleted a binary without asking first (when configured to do so) or quarantining first (when configured to do so).

The truly strange thing is that I discovered in My Kaspersky that I am entitled to a perpetual license of Kaspersky Free (1 year for 3 devices, but it automatically renews yearly) even if Kaspersky Free no longer exists! What I do remember is this:

  • While it was still available, I have used in the past Kaspersky Free.
  • Then, I used Kaspersky Security Cloud Free. But this one got discontinued, too.
  • At some point, I had a paid Kaspersky Total Security license; I don’t remember the details. I thought I paid for KAV at some point, but I guess my memory isn’t perfect.

Either way, I can now use Kaspersky Free under Windows if I install Kaspersky Standard, then I enter my credentials and I confirm that I prefer using the free version instead!

And I can confirm that the system is snappier when using Kaspersky instead of Windows Defender! Sure thing, I customized and optimized my Win11, but replacing Defender with Kaspersky was essential.

Oh, SmartScreen still needs to be manually disabled:

❷ Customize, customize, customize!

Win11 is simply not usable out of the box. The IoT editions are cleaner, but the UI/UX needs customization. I have spent hours making it look and behave better (and also installing various small utilities I cannot live without). I don’t even remember everything that I did!

I started with The Reg: Make Windows 11 more useful and less annoying with these 11 Registry hacks.

Then, Dedoimedo: Classic Explorer in Windows 11 plus speed, too. Because this cognoscente was so retarded as not to be able to post an unaltered .reg, here’s the exact text you should save as Dedoimedo.reg and run: 

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\CLSID\{2aa9162e-c906-4dd9-ad0b-3d24a8eef5a0}]
@="CLSID_ItemsViewAdapter"

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\CLSID\{2aa9162e-c906-4dd9-ad0b-3d24a8eef5a0}\InProcServer32]
@="C:\\Windows\\System32\\Windows.UI.FileExplorer.dll_"
"ThreadingModel"="Apartment"

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\CLSID\{6480100b-5a83-4d1e-9f69-8ae5a88e9a33}]
@="File Explorer Xaml Island View Adapter"

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\CLSID\{6480100b-5a83-4d1e-9f69-8ae5a88e9a33}\InProcServer32]
@="C:\\Windows\\System32\\Windows.UI.FileExplorer.dll_"
"ThreadingModel"="Apartment"

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Toolbar\ShellBrowser]
"ITBar7Layout"=hex:13,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,20,00,00,00,10,00,01,00,\
  00,00,00,00,01,00,00,00,01,07,00,00,5e,01,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,\
  00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,\
  00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,\
  00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,\
  00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,\
  00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,\
  00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,\
  00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,\
  00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,\
  00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,\
  00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,\
  00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,\
  00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,\
  00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,\
  00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,\
  00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,\
  00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,\
  00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,\
  00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,\
  00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,\
  00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,\
  00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00

Disabling the rounded corners via the Registry didn’t work.

As I said, I tweaked and tweaked and tweaked until I got rid of most of Win11’s absurd idiosyncrasies. In many cases, I asked Copilot and, later, Kimi. Especially Copilot was half-dumb:

  • Some of the proposed tweaks didn’t work because they required a newer build than 26100.1742.
  • Some of the proposed tweaks didn’t work because they only worked in builds older than 26100.1742.
  • Some of the proposed tweaks didn’t work because they only worked in Win10!

Well, AI is AI.

Win11 is an abomination once you inspect such areas:

  • Services
  • Scheduled Tasks
  • Logged System Events

I did, and I tweaked here and there.

With a 14-inch screen, Windows defaults to 150% scaling, which is beyond retarded. 125% is a sensible value. But there are two problems to be solved.

First, in Win10 and Win11, Microsoft removed the ability to directly change the system font (which is Segoe UI 9pt) used for File Explorer and desktop icon labels. Win7 was still fully customizable by inheriting this ability from WinXP, the last truly great version of Windows (as long as you were using it with that Win95/98/2k look, not with the retarded huge blue taskbar and titlebars, and green Start button). Most desktop environments for Linux and the BSDs are much more customizable, unless you’re into GNOME (which makes you half-retarded). But that fucking font is hard‑coded into the system UI under Windows!

The solution: Advanced System Font Changer.

Frankly, I can live with smaller fonts, especially as I prefer smaller icons on the desktop. I don’t even remember my previous choice of fonts. But should I need to customize the system font, I can use this tool.

A companion tool: Desktop Icon Spacing. However, you could as well open Regedit to [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\WindowMetrics] and look into IconSpacing, IconVerticalSpacing, and IconTitleWrap.

Second, even in 2025 (soon to be 2026), many apps don’t support fractional scaling, and they look blurry. For each such dumb binary, what you need to do is this: right-click, Properties, the Compatibility tab, Change high DPI settings, and override the scaling behavior to be performed by the application:

❸ Stardock’s Start11 is highly commendable

What I mean by this is Start11 is da shit! Don’t look elsewhere if you want to restore a common-sense taskbar and Start menu! Everything else is not professional enough. But do purchase it instead of using such cracked versions (some people wouldn’t even know what to click).

With minimal effort, my desktop quickly started to look rather decent:

At some point, I managed to disable the notification icon from the system tray, but I can’t remember what I did to achieve that.

BTW, here’s how a “normal” File Explorer should look IMO: with a (compact) List view (no details) by default:

And this is how right-click menus should look if you’re a power user (except for the mix of languages):

There’s a weird thing happening with the Show accent color on title bars and window borders option whose effect you could notice in File Explorer: it doesn’t show everywhere!

  • It does show in File Explorer, Control Panel (classic), Character Map, Calculator, Notepad3, IrfanView, Deluge, etc.
  • It does not show in Task Manager, Settings, and a few others, which could be explained by them being “special system shit with no real titlebar.”

But then:

  • It does not show in Firefox. OK, maybe Firefox is painting its window decorations itself, à la CSD (client-side decorations) in GTK.
  • But it does not show in SmartFTP Client either! And this one looks very much like a normal app to me. Once I install more software, I might notice some other anomalies, I guess.

Oh, well, I suppose this is just like the GTK3/GTK4 mess I experienced in Linux:

  • Some GTK apps observe the global Adwaita theme, be it light or dark.
  • Some GTK apps can be configured to observe the global Adwaita theme or to always override it with light or dark (see gedit).
  • Some GTK apps couldn’t care less, and they always show up either completely dark or completely light. Because, fuck, they’re GNOME apps!

Obviously, I can’t possibly use GNOME (I’m not stupid enough, especially not for their file manager), so the above list comes from my experiences with MATE, XFCE, and Cinnamon.

Now that Win11 is as messy as GTK4 or GNOME, I feel revenged. We’re definitely in Idiocracy.

Oh, but since I mentioned Linux and some of its desktop environments, their recent stupidification includes thin scrollbars. Who the fuck loves thin scrollbars that get even thinner or disappear if your mouse isn’t over them?

Well, Win11 and its users, who else?

But there are ways to amend that:

  • Go with Regedit to [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\WindowMetrics] and adjust the values of ScrollWidth and ScrollHeight. They’re negative; make them even more negative! 🙂
  • Settings → Accessibility → Visual effects → Always show scrollbars = On.

At first, I exaggerated the two thickness values, as can be seen in Regedit itself. I later decreased them (in absolute value), but I might still be exaggerating, eh?

The real issue is that they’re fucking ugly, so unlike the common-sense scrollbars introduced by Win95, which were the perfect upgrade to the dumb ones from Win3.1! But they had to further “innovate,” didn’t they?

But at least they’re honored by Firefox. Strangely, Character Map has narrower scrollbars than configured! And they don’t react to the mouse’s scroll wheel. Win11 is such a mess.

One could customize and tweak Win11 ad infinitum (that’s a hyperbole). For instance, depending on what tools you decide to use, you could optimize the lifespan of your SSDs:

Tip: Should you want to dig for newer drivers, avoid products such as Auslogics Driver Updater, DriverMax, IObit Driver Booster, and others. Prefer Driver Easy instead. It will only suggest legitimate, genuine drivers. Not only does it show exclusively Microsoft WHQL-certified drivers, but it doesn’t consider random drivers just because they’re newer, like other driver updaters do. Sometimes, the drivers might be signed, say, by Intel instead of Microsoft, but not by some small manufacturer. The updates might be minor, like version 10.2.0.1234 over 10.1.0.5678, but how could you trust an update like version 16.0, or maybe version 1.0.6, just because it’s newer? You shouldn’t encounter such scenarios. Make sure Driver Easy is configured to create restore points. But don’t take it from here, eh? 😉

❹ The unexpected upgrade

I thought Windows 11 IoT Enterprise LTSC 2024 (26100.1742) was stuck to this build and that it would only receive security updates and bug fixes. I was wrong.

I was upgraded to Windows 11 IoT Enterprise LTSC 24H2 (26100.7171).

Nothing was broken in the process.

Oh, except for File Explorer, which got partially re-dumbified, so I had to reapply that Registry hack! No big deal.

❺ Conclusions

Win11 is not the perfect match for such an old laptop (by today’s standards), but with a bit of effort, it can be made to look decent and to run quite satisfactorily, albeit not exactly snappily. I’m not sure whether to trust the 2.7 GB or the 2.6 GB figure for the RAM in use (the Task Manager contradicts itself), but I expected a much worse value:

Obviously, starting from a Win11 Pro or Win11 Home edition, much more cleaning needs to be done!

In light of this experience, here are my thoughts on Windows 11:

  1. Regardless of anything else, its UI/UX is a clear regression over Win10.
    • But Win10 was worse than Win7 (let’s ignore the Win8/8.1 crap), and Win7 was worse than WinXP (Vista asks to be excused). Server editions suffered from similar regressions in usability: some people swear that Windows Server 2008 R2 was the last decent edition.
  2. It’s not usable as is. This is, to me, the most important annoyance regarding Win11. It’s like a very ugly Linux distro that needs tons of customizations before becoming something you’d feel comfortable and productive with.
    • But GNOME and macOS are completely unusable for me, no matter how much you customize them (you can’t do much, because they’re designed for retards who aren’t supposed to have any kind of taste or wishes). With all its catastrophic design choices, File Explorer is clearly superior to the castrated Files (Nautilus) that only has two views (detailed list and icons) and to Finder (which also lacks a simple list view). As for the dock with icons that cannot display window titles, it’s not a new concept.
    • In recent times everyone wants to mimic the idiocy of macOS! Not only GNOME and Win11 (in different degrees), but even KDE and Win10 default to a taskbar with icon-only elements! Why are people complaining about Win11 then?! They seem fine with retarded design in other OSes and desktop environments!
    • Most people are stupid anyway. Even Dedoimedo likes to pin 22 icons on the taskbar (in KDE) and to distinguish between launchers and running apps only by a dash under the icons! If smart people are so stupid as to ditch the huge usability invention brought by Win95 with titles in the taskbar, how could we complain about Win11, which was designed for the brainless masses? Oh, the menu? This can be changed.
  3. It forces people to abandon older computers or to migrate to Linux.
    • True, the TPM requirements are completely bullshit, especially for normal-minded people who don’t use encrypted partitions on their personal devices. That’s because some people might prefer to be able to recover data rather than to pretend that they’re so important that the CIA, the MOSSAD, or the FSB will steal their laptop: regardless of how often one makes backups, there’s always something that has not been saved.
    • But Apple too forces a limited hardware lifespan: Macs generally get 5–7 years of new macOS releases from their launch date. After that, they’re dropped from the compatibility list for the next major macOS. Here, Win11 doesn’t support computers from 2018 and older. That’s 7 years! So why aren’t the Appletards complaining? Oh, they’re hipsters, and they already use more recent hardware!
    • Either way, new laptops that are perfectly able to run Win11 cost as little as €300. For once, I’ll not give Acer as an example, but HP: the HP 15-fc0031nq with AMD Ryzen 3 7320U, 8 GB RAM, and 256 GB SSD M.2, without Windows, can be found at incredibly low prices if you know where to look. This is not a fast laptop, but a very usable one.
  4. The edition most people would want to use, an edition that doesn’t come with absurd TPM requirements or bloatware, namely IoT, is not something people are supposed to use.
    • What’s worse, most people aren’t even aware of its existence!
    • The good news is that people who find out about it but who can’t find legal IoT licenses at decent prices will massgrave-activate it. Take that, Microsoft! Sure enough, one cannot do that if they use the device professionally, but Microsoft and the FBI won’t come to John Doe’s door.
  5. All in all, Win11 can be made into a perfectly usable OS that’s much more usable than GNOME (think “main flavor of Ubuntu”) and, regardless of your stupid opinion, more usable than macOS.

Information for the political correctness commission: I have used the R-word 9 times in this blog post.