How to declutter, quiet down, and take the AI out of Windows 11 25H2

It’s that time of year again—temperatures are dropping, leaves are changing color, and Microsoft is gradually rolling out another major yearly update to Windows 11. The Windows 11 25H2 update is relatively minor compared to last year’s 24H2 update (the “25” here is a reference to the year the update was released, while the “H2” denotes that it was released in the second half of the year, a vestigial suffix from when Microsoft would release two major Windows updates per year). The 24H2 update came with some major under-the-hood overhauls of core Windows components and significant performance improvements for the Arm version; 25H2 is largely 24H2, but with a rolled-over version number to keep it in line with Microsoft’s timeline for security updates and tech support. But Microsoft’s continuous update cadence for Windows 11 means that even the 24H2 version as it currently exists isn’t the same one Microsoft released a year ago. To keep things current, we’ve combed through our Windows cleanup guide, updating it for the current build of Windows 11 25H2 (26200.7019) to help anyone who needs a fresh Windows install or who is finally updating from Windows 10 now that Microsoft is winding down support for it. We’ll outline dozens of individual steps you can take to clean up a “clean install” of Windows 11, which has taken an especially user-hostile attitude toward advertising and forcing the use of other Microsoft products. As before, this is not a guide about creating an extremely stripped-down, telemetry-free version of Windows; we stick to the things that Microsoft officially supports turning off and removing. There are plenty of experimental hacks and scripts that take it a few steps farther, and/or automate some of the steps we outline here—NTDev’s Tiny11 project is one—but removing built-in Windows components can cause unexpected compatibility and security problems, and Tiny11 has historically had issues with basic table-stakes stuff like “installing security updates.”