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📃Everything Windows

📜 In this 🪟 Windows notes repository, I store all of my notes related to the Windows operating system and Win apps.

  • 📌 Some commands may be outdated.

❗⚠️ This document contains powerful Windows commands - review each carefully before execution, as they may impact your system, and use them at your own risk!

🌐 Resources 🔗

Install

Privacy

Debloat Windows 11

Install

📌 RECOMMENDED INSTALL SOLUTION ➡️ Rufus (simple)

  • The latest Rufus version can be used to create a bootable USB drive with the preconfigured necessary bypasses and automatic local user creation on the bootable Windows 11 ISO.

📌 Unattend-generator (advanced)

  • An additional answer file can be used for more specific first-install settings. Make sure to include autounattend.xml file at the root of the Windows installation media to be executed during Windows setup.

📌 winutil - Chris Titus Tech's Windows Utility - Install Programs, Tweaks, Fixes, and Updates

Windows 11 without Internet (manual)

🔗 How to bypass internet connection to install Windows 11 - Pureinfotech

🔗 UPDATED 2025 -> The New BypassNRO - YouTube

Manual bypass during standard install

  • Install Windows 11 via USB ISO

  • At the first boot in OOBE (Out-of-the-box experience), select Region and Keyboard layout

  • On the "Let's connect you to a network" screen, press SHIFT+F10 on the keyboard to open the Command Prompt and type the following command

  • Create a local default Windows 11 account and proceed

    • Disable and answer No to all the Privacy Settings if not needed

Proceed with the final Configuration.

Configuration

📝 Tip: The following settings should be used with a clean Windows install; otherwise, proceed with caution ⚠️.

Privacy Settings

Disable Online Start Search

🔗 How to Disable Online or Web Results in Start Menu in Windows 10

Debloat Win

🔗 winutil - Chris Titus Tech's Windows Utility

🔗 BloatyNosy - by Builtbybel

🔗 Windows11-Debloat-Privacy-Guide

🔗 Win11Debloat - Raphire

🔗 Win-Debloat-Tools - LeDragoX

❗ The repositories above contain many useful and powerful scripts. Be sure to review them carefully before applying to your system, and do so at your own risk! ⚠️

  1. Download https://github.com/Raphire/Win11Debloat repo and run Run.bat to configure

    • Run additional tweaks like Regfiles\Hide_Onedrive_Folder.reg

  2. Download https://github.com/LeDragoX/Win-Debloat-Tools repo and run other scripts if necessary (I prefer to run them manually)

    • Backup-System

    • Optimize-Privacy

    • Optimize-ServicesRunning

    • Optimize-TaskScheduler

    • Optimize-WindowsFeaturesList

    • Remove-BloatwareAppsList

    • Install-NerdFont

    • ...

    • and Software install tool

  3. Use Chris Titus Tech's winutil for more tweaks and fixes.

Removing Telemetry and other unnecessary services

📌 The following commands may have already been executed by the scripts above. The command list may be outdated and requires some cleaning and fixing.

  • Open cmd.exe and type the following commands

Scheduled tasks

UniGetUI

🔗 UniGetUI

  • Use UniGetUI for an intuitive package managers GUI to download, install and update the necessary software

  • Create you own package bundle to bulk install software

  • Export packages list and more

Italian Dev Keyboard - Tilde and Backtick

PowerToys

Install Microsoft PowerToys via winget

  • Enable FancyZones and create a window layout

Windows Terminal Mod

Install Windows Terminal via Microsoft Store

  • Open Windows Terminal and go to the Settings UI window.

  • Select Startup and choose "Windows Terminal" as the Default terminal application setting.

Install Powershell

Install OhMyPosh

Configure OhMyPosh

Open and configure Windows Terminal to use the installed font

  • shortcut CTRL + SHIFT + , to open the Windows Terminal settings.json file

  • add the following attribute

  • Customize and configuration

    • To set a new configuration or theme you need to change the --config option of the oh-my-posh init <shell> line in your profile script

Install fastfetch

CMD commands

❗ Most of the following commands have to be run by opening CMD as Administrator.

Change Windows Theme

🔗 How to Change Themes in Window 11 Without Activating Windows

Dark theme

Light theme

Winget Upgrade Script

  • Create a UpgradePackages.bat with the following content and run it to upgrade installed packages

cmd Cheatsheet

Powershell commands

Show Wi-Fi profiles

PS1 Scripts

Winget

Powercat

Directory and File Listing Without Extensions

Powershell Cheatsheet

Software

Sysinternals

🔗 Web: https://live.sysinternals.com/

  • Via Windows Explorer:

  • e.g. Copy tools folder to C:\Program Files\ and rename it to sysinternals

VirusTotal Uploader ContextMenu

  1. Download vt_setup.msi from https://github.com/SamuelTulach/VirusTotalUploader/releases

  2. Run vt_setup.msi and install VirusTotalUploader

  3. Create an account and Get an API key from VirusTotal.com

  4. Copy the API key

  5. Run VirusTotalUploader, paste API key and select Direct file upload

  1. EXTRA: Change the context menu handler by opening regedit.exe and searching for VirusTotalUploader.

    • It should be in HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shell

    • Change the MUIVerb data value, e.g. Upload to VirusTotal.

  1. Now you can right-click any file an select "Upload to VirusTotal" to scan it using VirusTotal

VirusTotal - Free public API
Limits

Request rate

4 lookups / min

Daily quota

500 lookups / day

Monthly quota

15.5 K lookups / month

Troubleshooting

Delete GRUB files from a Boot EFI partition in Windows

🔗 How to delete GRUB files from a Boot EFI partition in Windows 10

  • Run a cmd.exe process with administrator privileges

  • Run diskpart

  • Type: list disk then sel disk X where X is the drive your boot files reside on

  • Type list vol to see all partitions (volumes) on the disk (the EFI volume will be formatted in FAT, others will be NTFS)

  • Select the EFI volume by typing: sel vol Y where Y is the SYSTEM volume (this is almost always the EFI partition)

  • For convenience, assign a drive letter by typing: assign letter=M: where M is a free (unused) drive letter

  • Type exit to leave disk part

  • While still in the cmd prompt, type: M: and hit enter, where M was the drive letter you just created.

  • Type dir to list directories on this mounted EFI partition

  • If you are in the right place, you should see a directory called EFI

  • Type cd EFI and then dir to list the child directories inside EFI

  • Type rmdir /S ubuntu to delete the ubuntu boot directory

Resize Windows EFI partition

⚙️ Goal

Make the EFI System Partition larger to support Lenovo BIOS update, which requires more than the original 100 MB created by the Windows 11 standard installer.

📌 Expected result

  • EFI resized

  • MSR restored

  • Boot repaired

  • Windows stable and functioning

1. Check disk layout

  • Found that the 100 MB EFI System Partition was too small.

  • Discovered a 16 MB MSR partition (Microsoft Reserved) between EFI and C: preventing resizing.

2. Deleted the MSR Partition

  • Booted into GParted Live USB

  • Deleted the 16 MB MSR partition (normally safe but can be risky).

  • *Shrink the left part of the C: partition to free up the necessary space.

  • This freed space to the right of the EFI partition.

3. Resized the EFI Partition

  • Expanded the EFI partition from 100 MB to a larger size (~300 MB).

  • Applied the changes.

4. BSOD After Reboot

  • Upon reboot, Windows crashed with BSOD - NTFS_FILE_SYSTEM stop code.

  • Cause: likely NTFS structure misalignment or partition table confusion after MSR deletion and EFI + C: resizing.

5. Recreated the MSR Partition

  • Booted into Windows recovery

    • Advanced Startup -> Command Prompt

  • Used diskpart to recreate a 16 MB MSR partition in the correct spot:

6. Repaired Windows via Advanced Recovery

  • Rebooted into Windows Recovery Mode.

  • Used the built-in startup repair tool

    • Advanced Options → Startup Repair

  • Windows automatically fixed the bootloader/NTFS issues.

7. System Booted Successfully

  • No more BSOD.

  • EFI partition now has enough space.

  • Ready to proceed with BIOS update or other tasks.

Check disk info - diskpart

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