Every new Windows 11 machine arrives carrying the same invisible tax. Not the specs on the box, but the hours you spend immediately afterward: uninstalling Clipchamp, dismissing the OneDrive setup wizard, wondering why Microsoft pushed Candy Crush onto your Start menu via the Content Delivery Manager, and hunting for the privacy toggles that should have been off by default. That has become a ritual. You buy the machine; you disinfect the experience, and only then do you start using it.
I did that for years, then about a year ago, I stopped. Now, when I set up a new personal PC, I use ReviOS, a modified Windows 11 configuration applied through an open-source tool. I will get into the details shortly, but the premise is that it gives me a cleaner starting point without making me perform the usual post-install exorcism.
Resist the change!
Stock Windows 11 is not broken. That is important to say up front, because the point here is not that Microsoft ships an unusable operating system. Windows 11 is stable, broadly compatible, and backed by an updated system and security stack that regular users are right to value.
My issue is the setup experience around it.
On a new PC, I expect to install my browser, download my usual apps, sign into cloud storage, update drivers, and get on with using the machine. Instead, I usually start by trimming Windows back into shape. I check the Start menu, remove bundled apps I do not use, turn off widgets, review notification settings, stop background programs from launching at startup, and change default app behavior that keeps nudging me toward Microsoft’s own services.
Then there are the newer AI entry points layered into Windows 11, especially on Copilot+ PCs. Microsoft’s controversial Recall feature, Click to Do, AI-enhanced search, Copilot hooks, and related features are not all the same thing, and it would be unfair to describe them as one giant privacy disaster. Microsoft says Recall is opt-in, stores snapshots locally, and requires the user to enable snapshot saving.
Still, the direction of travel is clear enough that I now treat major Windows updates as another settings audit. I check privacy, diagnostics, AI features, startup apps, Game Bar, Search, and the taskbar instead of assuming the system still looks the way I left it.
That is the part I got tired of. Not Windows itself, but the feeling that every fresh install begins with negotiation.
ReviOS is a Playbook, which is a small file containing a set of system modifications applied using the open-source AME Wizard, a tool designed to customize Windows on either a running system or an offline Windows ISO. It is not a pirated operating system or an unsigned bootleg download. It is your legitimate Windows 11 installation, modified in place through a documented, open-source process.
The Playbook is licensed under Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International and lives publicly on GitHub. The current ReviOS Playbook supports Windows 10 21H2 and 22H2 on x64, along with Windows 11 23H2, 24H2, and 25H2 on both x64 and ARM64, across editions including Home, Pro, Enterprise, and LTSC.
The process itself is not complicated, but it asks for your attention. You download AME Wizard and the Playbook, open AME Wizard, drag the .apbx file into the drop zone, and follow the on-screen steps. Before the configuration options appear, the wizard asks you to manually disable Windows Security — all four toggles — because Defender will otherwise interfere with the process.
Once that is done, you work through a series of choices: which browser to install (Brave by default, Firefox as an alternative, or neither), whether to keep or disable Defender after installation, whether to disable hibernate, and which optional components to remove. By default, the Playbook removes Microsoft Edge, OneDrive, Recall, and Copilot AI components, Microsoft Teams, Photos, Dev Home, Your Phone, and, in the current release, Xbox apps.
The process wraps up in no longer than 25 minutes in most cases, and then the system restarts.
Before you begin, you should back up everything, use a clean, stock Windows installation, and run Windows Update to completion. Converting existing installations that have been in use for some time is still experimental and may cause issues. The official documentation is the authoritative walkthrough; read it before touching AME Wizard.
The first thing I notice after installing ReviOS is not some dramatic benchmark number but the absence of noise. On the modest machine I tested it on, my CPU usage, RAM usage, and background activity were lower than I normally see with stock Windows 11 out of the box. Shutdowns also felt snappier, which lines up with one of ReviOS’s documented tweaks: it reduces WaitToKillServiceTimeout from 5000ms to 1500ms and WaitToKillAppTimeout from 20000ms to 2000ms.
The desktop also starts in a state much closer to what I would have configured manually. File Explorer opens to This PC, file extensions are visible by default, the classic right-click context menu is back — saving you the trouble of fixing Windows 11’s context menu yourself — and Windows Search is not stuffed with Bing results.
The Start menu is much cleaner too, especially if you keep the default option that removes pinned items. ReviOS also removes Microsoft’s newer AI components by default, including Recall, Click to Do, and Copilot. That is a big deal to me because I do not want every fresh Windows setup to begin with another round of “what is this, what does it access, and how do I turn it off?” Its documentation also says Windows Update will not reinstall removed system components, so the cleanup is not something I have to keep reapplying after every update.
Gaming is also one of the areas where ReviOS makes a more aggressive call. It automatically disables Virtualization-based Security (VBS) to increase performance in Windows 11, alongside Hypervisor-protected Code Integrity (HVCI), which the documentation specifically frames as a performance-oriented decision. I would not say you should expect every game to suddenly gain a huge FPS boost, because that depends heavily on the hardware and the game. However, on machines already weighed down by Windows security virtualization and background overhead, you can expect the system to be less encumbered.
Now for the part that matters just as much. Defender is gone if you accept the default. That is not a detail to wave past — it is the biggest security trade-off on the list, and removing it means I need to deliberately install a third-party antivirus before doing anything else on the machine. Going without protection and assuming careful browsing habits are enough is a bad plan.
Another thing you need to know is that Automatic Windows Updates are disabled by default, and updates are paused until 2038. You can trigger them manually or re-enable them through the Revision Tool at any time. Windows Update will not reinstall any system components that ReviOS removed, so the system stays clean after patching. But on a machine you are not actively monitoring, disabling automatic updates is a risk. Data usage monitoring is also broken by default (fixable via the Revision Tool), and Xbox Achievement notifications will not work due to the removal of telemetry. These are small, but you should know.
Stock Windows 11 is functional, well-supported, and backed by automatic updates and Microsoft’s official safety net. For many people, that’s more important than the annoyance of preinstalled apps, background services, and unwanted defaults.
On my own machines, though, I have stopped accepting that first hour of housekeeping as part of the setup process. ReviOS gives me a cleaner baseline from the start, with fewer background tasks competing for attention, privacy settings already pushed in a saner direction, and none of the usual prompts or bundled extras waiting to be dismissed before I can actually use the PC.
ReviOS is a customized version of Windows that removes background bloat, reduces resource usage, and aims to improve responsiveness. It focuses on delivering a leaner Windows experience for users who want more control over what runs on their system.
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Sounds very useful indeed; similar but more extensive than the cleaning routine I normally go through on a new box. I’ll be very interested if they’re able to solidify it for existing installations; in the meantime I’ll keep it in mind for the next purchase. Thanks loads!
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