I "debloated" Windows 11 through official means, and here's how you can too

[javajolt]

Windows 11 is known for being a nuisance in many ways, between all the bloatware that's included, ad-like notifications, and forced features and behaviors no one really wants. It's so bad that the European Union had to step in with the Digital Markets Act, which forced Microsoft (and other companies) to give consumers more choice when it comes to using their platforms.

Now, you may think these options are only available in the EU, but that's not entirely correct. You'd typically need to choose the correct region when first setting up your device, but there's a way to do this after the fact — and it's using official Microsoft tools, free of charge, and it won't require you to lose any data. I did it, and here's how you can too.

The benefits of using Windows in the EU
A much more pleasant experience



The Digital Markets Act enforced in the EU (or, more accurately, the European Economic Area) has forced Microsoft to hand over control of multiple parts of the user experience to the users themselves. The company can no longer use Windows as a vehicle to force users to adopt its other services, so a wide range of behaviors are different for PCs that are set up in these regions.

A big one is that you're able to uninstall Microsoft Edge just like any other app, so if you prefer using a different browser, you can just go ahead and do it. What's more, Microsoft can no longer force your search queries to be directed to Microsoft Edge and ignore your default browser, so if you use the search bar in Windows, you can have your searches open in your preferred browser again.

But it gets even better. In these regions, you can even install additional search providers for the search bar, so you're not stuck with Bing, either. You can use DuckDuckGo, or Google, or any search engine that can be integrated into Windows. The same can be said for the news feed in the Widgets pane — if you can find another provider of a news feed for the Widgets feed, you don't have to get your news from MSN (which is awful). Plus, new user accounts don't get as many apps installed out of the box, you'll see fewer ads through things such as Windows Spotlight, and more.

If you're getting jealous that you don't live in the EU, though, don't worry. Even if you set up your PC with the United States as the region, you can fix it.

Switching your setup region with official methods
You don't need to reset your PC



Typically, you have to choose the "setup region" for your computer during the out-of-box experience (OOBE), the first-time setup after installing Windows or buying a new PC. This region is saved permanently and display in the Settings app, under Time & language > Language & region, with a field called Device setup region. This is what determines whether you have the EU-focused experience or not. Thankfully, changing this is easier than it sounds.

All you need to do to change your device setup region is to trigger the OOBE setup again, and to do this, you can usually Microsoft's System Preparation Tool (sysprep), which is built into Windows. All you need to do is press Windows + R to open the Run dialog, and then type in or copy the following text and press Enter:

%WINDIR%\system32\sysprep\sysprep.exe

You can leave the options set to the default, and simply choose OK to continue.



This will reboot your PC and you'll be taken back to the OOBE screen, but don't worry — all your data is still intact. Here, simply choose a region that's covered by the Digital Markets Act, such as Portugal (you can still choose English as the language), and then follow the setup process as usual. You will need to create a new user account, but it can be a local account, and you can delete it later. When yo get to the sign-in page, the local account option won't be shown, but you can press Shift + F10 to open the Command Prompt, and then type this text, then press Enter:

start ms-cxh:localonly



Once you make it back to the desktop, you can sign out of the account you just created and sign back into your main account with all your apps and files. You can delete the new account, too. You'll see the updated device region in the Settings app, and you'll also notice you can now uninstall Microsoft Edge, disable the news feed in Widgets, or change the search engine in the search bar.

Switching back to the United States
For new accounts

After following these steps, your original main account will still be set with all the same regional settings as before, so everything should work just as before. However, new accounts will be created using the regional setting you picked above by default. If you want new user accounts to be set to the United States in the future, you'll need to change one extra setting.

For this, open the Settings app and go to Time & language, then select Language & region. Here, select Administrative language settings. This will open a new dialog.



Here, click the Copy settings button, and then check the two boxes at the bottom of the new dialog window, then click OK. This will make new accounts use the same regional settings as the current user account. If your user account also has the wrong regional settings, you can change those in the Settings app before following these steps.



Now we just need apps
Taking baby steps



While this is a great way to make Windows significantly less annoying for yourself, it's worth noting that these steps don't automatically make Windows 11 as perfect as it may sound. For example, you can disable Bing from showing search suggestions in the search bar on the Start menu, but you can't really replace it with another option because there don't seem to be any search provider apps on the Microsoft Store just yet. Similarly, there seem to be no feed provider apps that could replace MSN in the Widgets pane.

This also won't completely remove extra apps that sometimes come preloaded on Windows 11. After creating the new account, I still saw links like LinkedIn in the Start menu, and a button for installing WhatsApp. You may still have a bit of cleanup work to do when creating a new account.

Still, these steps make a big difference in ensuring your Windows 11 experience is more pleasant. and you'll see fewer ads, plus just being to uninstall Microsoft Edge is a big benefit if you don't want any extra junk on your PC.

No third-party tools necessary

There are a lot of debloating solutions developed by the Windows fan community, and they can be great, but it's also understandable if you don't want to install any extra software, which may sometimes break things when making changes to Windows. These steps may not be as thorough in removing all the unnecessary things Windows 11 comes with, but since it fully relies on Microsoft's own systems that are already built into Windows, there's a greater chance they won't be broken in a future update, especially considering these features have been around for a very long time and are essential for advanced deployments.

I highly recommend trying this out to make your Windows experience a little less frustrating, even if it won't fix all the things that can make Windows 11 annoying.

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