Tip: Quickly setting up a new Windows install

[Joonikko]

If you've worked at a tech shop or even done multiple reinstalls of Windows, you quickly figure out how tedious the process is, especially on computers with OEM bloatware on them.

There are some handy tools to speed this process up:
- The PC Decrapifier: batch uninstall software
- Revo uninstaller: get permanently rid of hard-to-uninstall software
- Chocolatey: package manager for Windows

To install Chocolatey, open command prompt as admin and paste & run this:

@powershell -NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Command "iex ((new-object net.webclient).DownloadString('https://chocolatey.org/install.ps1'))" && SET PATH=%PATH%;%ALLUSERSPROFILE%\chocolatey\bin

Now Chocolatey has been installed and you can use it to install packages.
For example:

choco install ccleaner revo.uninstaller malwarebytes -y

will batch install CCleaner, Revo Uninstaller and Malwarebytes without asking anything after you press enter. Fully automatic. You can even make the whole thing into one .bat file, run it as admin and go grab yourself a cup of coffee.



Also bloatware ridden Windows 10 machines are faster to fully reinstall with a USB flash drive since the installer won't ask for activation.

Download wanted ISO from Microsoft's site, create a bootable 8GB flash drive with Rufus, boot the machine to the flash drive, clear the installed partition (leave recovery partitions untouched), wait installer to finish, update & done. No bloatware uninstallation frustration.

 

[WaLLy]

Good info.

Don't have time to find links to back what I'm saying.. but you don't really need Rufus. Windows makes a tool to make a bootable Windows 10 USB drive. Don't even need to manually download the ISO as it does it for you.

Also, the pain I'm going through is waiting ages and ages for Windows Updates. I've gotten tools for offline update installs but it still feels like it takes exactly (if not more) the same amount of time to do the updates. Geez Louise!

 

[PrestoN]

Ahh revo is great. Use it all the time at work. Wish we were allowed to uninstall OEM bloatware though. Can only do it with client permission, so ghey.

@WaLLy the network at my store is only 25 down. And we often have a few computers doing updates plus bunches of different shit on the sales floor using the internet and what not. I know the pain of slow updates offline tools do help some, but I feel like they produce more errors than usual.

 

[NickHouston]

I'm planning on joining the SSD bandwagon soon.

I've heard of a site that you can go to and it auto-redirects multiple downloads to vital things for a PC (chrome, malwarebytes, steam, etc).

Do you know of anything like this?

 

[Joonikko]

I'm planning on joining the SSD bandwagon soon.

I've heard of a site that you can go to and it auto-redirects multiple downloads to vital things for a PC (chrome, malwarebytes, steam, etc).

Do you know of anything like this?

Do you mean Ninite? https://ninite.com/

Though you can achieve the same thing with Chocolatey, for example:

choco install googlechrome malwarebytes steam vlc 7zip picasa skype teamspeak ccleaner -y

Classic Shell start menu installation

choco install classic-shell -installArgs ADDLOCAL=ClassicStartMenu -y