Summary
- Windows 11 feels like a bloated, slow billboard for Microsoft services, not my OS.
- AtlasOS strips bloat, removes ads/telemetry, restores classic Start/taskbar and Windows 7/10 defaults.
- Installer uses plaintext playbooks, Toolbox toggles, cuts idle RAM (~4GB→2GB), optional Edge/Defender removal.
Windows 11, especially in the latest versions, has become a big, bloated mess. It’s slow, cluttered, and feels like a billboard to advertise Microsoft services more than an operating system. I tried a version of Windows that strips all of that away and makes your computer feel like yours again.
The sad state of modern Windows
Let’s take a look at what a fresh installation of Windows looks like. We get ads in the search bar. Ads in the start menu. There’s a dedicated widget on the taskbar that only shows ads and MSN articles.
The default browser, Microsoft Edge, looks like a billboard. There’s Copilot scattered all across the interface: the search menu, the taskbar, Microsoft Edge, even the Notepad. The newer versions of Windows are even adding these “AI actions” to the context menus.
Your files are automatically backed up to the OneDrive cloud (since you cannot install Windows without logging into a Microsoft account anymore). If you disable OneDrive, the operating system regularly nags you until you enable it again.
It’s not even a matter of bad defaults because you have little control over these Microsoft services.
For example, when using the search bar, it automatically searches through Bing as well. The button for disabling this Bing search feature was removed from recent Windows versions. Similarly, you can’t hide the many Copilot integrations spread across the interface or remove the ad widgets on the taskbar. You can’t even delete the “About this Image” button on the desktop.
What I mean is that it’s not just a matter of bad defaults. What you get out of the box is what you’re stuck with (for the most part).
All these changes have made Windows a bloated mess that keeps getting in the way. More than cluttered, it makes me feel like my computer isn’t mine. As if it were on loan from Microsoft.
AtlasOS restores Windows to its glory days
AtlasOS is a free and open-source project designed to make Windows leaner, faster, and more private. You’re supposed to run it on a fresh installation of Windows, and it removes all the bloatware, disables data collection and tracking, and removes all ads from the interface. It brings back many of the defaults we had in Windows 10 and Windows 7. More than that, it adds all the customization features that Microsoft excluded from Windows 11 (more on those in a few).
Here’s how it works. You’re supposed to install a fresh copy of Windows 11 and then grab the AtlasOS installer from its website. The installer loads “playbook” files, which are scripts that tell the installer what to do. These playbooks are in plain text, so you can examine them for yourself and note the exact modifications the AtlasOS installer will be making to the OS.
It also provides you with some optional tweaks during the installation. In my case, it offered to disable Windows Defender, uninstall Edge, install a different browser of my choice, and enable a custom performance profile.
It took about five minutes to complete the installation, after which the computer rebooted and dropped me into the new AtlasOS.
This is what Windows 11 could and should have been
Right off the bat, I noticed a boost in performance. Right out of the box, Windows idles at about 4GB of RAM. I checked the resources right after the first boot.
After installing AtlasOS, the idle RAM usage dropped to 2GB. That’s almost half!
Beyond the raw performance gains, it also made a lot of cosmetic changes. AtlasOS switched the taskbar and Start menu back to their original layouts. The start menu moved to the left corner, and so did the taskbar icons. It removed the ad widget from the taskbar. Ads from the Start menu and the search bar also vanished.
AtlasOS also debloated the whole system, including all traces of Copilot from the search menu and system apps. During the setup process, I chose to uninstall Edge and replace it with Firefox.
It even brings back the default context menus we had in Windows 10 and 7. The context menus on the desktop and within Explorer are both restored. I instantly felt my muscle memory return when I right-clicked anywhere on the interface. I can’t get used to the new context menus because Microsoft is constantly changing them.
There’s an AtlasOS Toolbox app that was installed after the reboot. It gives you easy toggles to customize your Windows experience. You can use these toggles to disable or enable Copilot, Microsoft Recall, and Bing searches on the taskbar. It also lets you add new elements to context menus and similar interface tweaks. You can control Windows Update here with a single toggle. Switching it off disables feature updates while allowing security updates.
AtlasOS reminded me of what it was like to use Windows before it got Cortana, Copilot, Recall, online accounts, OneDrive, Bing, Teams, Outlook, advertisements, and recommended links in the Start menu. Half your RAM usage goes towards collecting your personal data and powering ads or bloatware. Cutting it all out and bringing back sane defaults makes Windows 11 feel just like Windows 7.
