8.1 starting to be fun

Had time lately so I was messing with my 8.1. Got it trimmed down real good. Looks and runs about like my Vista and '7 machines. Internet activity is almost non-existent at idle.

Start screen only has 4 original apps and 6 items I've pinned to the screen. Loaded all kind of stuff from my other computers. Programs music video pdf's and only had 1 old program that refused to run. I'm liking it.

So I got curious. Made a new other user account. And don't you know all the pre-installed metro apps all there and everyone of them fighting for internet and data going up and up.
At the firewall every apps had 2 or 3 inbound and outbound rules. I disabled all except core network and network discovery. Slowed things down some but not good yet.
Found and took owership of c:\programfiles\windows apps. For a test I deleted 1. Netflks. Made another account and now it doesn't show anywhere.
Has anyone ever deleted most of these apps? I can see 3 or 4 I'll use sometime but most are useless to me. This is a 3rd machine so its a test-bed.
How far can all this stuff be trimmed off the OS?

 

Keep taking images until you break something, then you will have your answer

Want to do something similar with my Thinkpad E335. It started life with Win 7 Pro x64 and all the Lenovo stuff and you could almost hear it groaning under the load. Added 8.1 later and when booted to that it feels a lot more lightfooted though still no racehorse, so over Xmas I removed 7 altogether. Like you, I have no use for the vast majority of 8 apps so I'm going to start deleting stuff and see just how much difference if any doing so actually makes.

 

Earthling- On my main user account I deleted apps from the start screen and it seems they're just deleted from that user's profile because they're all still there for a new user. When I deleted the Netflks then the new (2nd) user showed an error in event viewer for Netflks. Found an apps repository in registry almost duplicate of the apps folder in Program Files. Deleted the Netflks folder there, cleared the event logs and rebooted. No error. So it seems all these apps are starting every time but don't show in any startup autoruns or such. My main user account boots in 42 sec and feels responsive. It's getting close to what I expected for a new machine and OS.

 

You mean the Desktop view of Windows 8.1 looks similar to Vista and Win 7. In fact, it is practically identical to Win 7. The Win 8.1 Start screen is unlike anything in Vista or 7.

I can't see the need to do this from a system performance perspective. Some tiles on the Start screen are live, meaning the ones that are actively updating from the Internet and other tiles are not live, they are just program launch buttons, like the programs that appear on the Windows 7 Programs menu. The live ones have very little, if noticeable at all, impact on system performance and startup time, and they can be turned off. In other words, their "live" state can be turned off; to do that, right click on a tile and select "Turn live tile off".

 

Usaf- Yeah I did a bunch of that. For every user here. And turning the few tiles off that have that selection doesn't put a dent in the affinity of 8.1 for the internet. If I want to give someone a limited account while they're here to get a birth record or pay a bill online or such then it's eating up more data than they are just to keep 8.1 fed. Not worth it to me. I want mine to act like I need and want it to. And it becomes a fight on a limited bandwidth connection for me to even read some news with having to share with the OS constantly. I didn't go through this with any other OS and I hate to have to now.

 

What the heck? Are you using dialup connection?

 

If I had the cable here turned on I'd be throttled if I let it to it's own devices. There is 19 different pre-installed apps and Biong has 16 different itself. This stuff used to be called bloat or even worse. Remember Pc-deCrapifier. It should be opt-in not opt-out. Tell me every owner wants to read a cookbook while they search for a trip on Amazon and compare prices at Booking.com. Geez they could of at least put MG's link in there.:wave