Interested in participating in Re-Tweaker development/test?

[Noel]

I'm developing a Tweaker / Re-Tweaker script that will facilitate easily undoing the many things Microsoft does after an in-place upgrade.

Things that *I* don't care for, and want re-tweaked are as follows:

• They install all the Apps.  I uninstall all the Apps.  This includes the Windows Store App.  If you want to use Apps this script is probably not for you.   Also NOTE:  AS OF WIN 10 v1703 "Creator's Update", removing all the Apps appears to break the ability to update the system with Windows Update.  I am presently experimenting with a configuration in which I skip the App removal step, but do everything else.
  
  I suggest avoiding the App removal step entirely for now.
   
• They install OneDrive system integration.   I remove it.
   
• They set up settings OneSync.  I tear it down.
    
• There are many services, support programs, and scheduled jobs to support the above.  Removal and disabling increases efficiency and available resources, as well as privacy.
   
• There are some tweaks I like to make to make the system more responsive/usable.  These include setting up Explorer so that it doesn't automatically set the "Folder Optimization" but sets all folders to "General Items", unhiding AppData and ProgramData folders, disabling generation of hidden thumbs.db files, etc.
  
  
• Reduction of window chrome in order to make the non-client stuff less intrusive. This is less an issue than it used to be, but can still be helpful to make things look a little more svelte.
  
   

I have already coded most of the above into a script and it works.  There are still others I'm looking to code, and I'm working on (or at least thinking about) these:

• I could consider adding a tweak to install all the Aero Glass components in the right places.
   
• I've used a combo of O&O ShutUp 10 and W10Privacy, along with some of my own privacy tweaks to quiet Windows down.  I'd like to get all the things these various apps do in one convenient place.
   
• Opt out of Spynet (Windows Defender and Malicious Software Removal Tool reporting to Microsoft).
   
  
• Set Windows Updates to avert automatic updating.  Perhaps also facilitate installation of the Windows Update Hiding Tool.  Maybe this would be better in a separate tool to facilitate easy reconfiguration/installation of updates?
   
• Might it be useful to facilitate installation of tools like Classic Shell and others available online?  This might just be a matter of popping-up web pages to the right sites, or it might be possible to do a direct download of the installer and run it.
   
• Facilitate exporting a reference copy of the entire registry, to be able to refer back to how things were in a pinch.
   
• Deconfigure HomeGroup networking.
   
• Various other small usability tweaks, such as speeding up UI responsiveness, changing the default for hiding folder merge conflicts, launching folder windows in separate process, having Explorer show actual times instead of things like "2 minutes ago", etc.
   
• Setting up a short, simple TEMP path (C:\TEMP), which tends to make things work better as well as giving an easy place to do things.
   

I'm sure there are many others.  I'm interested in both having folks willing to test as well as to contribute ideas or even implementation.

For now - and I'm not saying it'll stay like this - I'm prototyping the Re-Tweaker as a .BAT file that's augmented with several key tools (some from the GnuWin32 toolkit, plus SetACL and SQLite).  I can re-distribute the Gnu tools, but re-distributing SetACL and SQLite would violate their license agreements.  Ultimately I will make the script do the work to obtain them from various online sources itself if they're not already on the system.

Here's the script (I'll try to keep this file updated with the latest work):

1.  Unzip all the files from this archive into a single working folder, in which you'll run the script.  Remember, this is a work in progress:

Noel.ProDigitalSoftware.com/files/Windows10ReTweaker.zip

You'll also need to visit these two sites to download free tools SetACL.exe and SQLite3.exe, since I can't legally redistribute them (yet):

2.  Visit the following web pages and put the named executables also in the working folder:

SetACL.exe -    from helgeklein.com/download/ (specifically the EXE version of SetACL 3.0.6).

SQLite3.exe -   from www.sqlite.org/download.html (specifically this)

Run Windows10ReTweaker.bat in an ELEVATED CMD window.  I normally keep UAC completely disabled, so I don't worry about that myself.

Are you interested in:

a) trying out what I've got so far,

b) suggesting additional things to tweak, and/or

c) contributing code?

I think having this site be the source for a great re-tweaker will draw people here.

I would very much welcome your feedback!

-Noel

[Noel]

Note that an effective way to test this is to do the following:

Install an in-place Windows 10 upgrade in a virtual machine.
Save a snapshot.

...then...

Restore the snapshot and test the script.
Restore the snapshot and test the script.
etc. over and over again.

-Noel

[Noel]

Version 1.3 is now available at the link in the original post above.

I just added some new sections in addition to tidying a few things up.

I'd love to hear if anyone's trying this.

-Noel

[Rick]

I haven't had a chance yet, but I was wanting to give it a try on real hardware in a separate partition on my system.

[Noel]

Thanks, I look forward to the feedback, and also to any insights anyone has about what goes together... In other words, maybe I should put the disabling of the various App-support services in with the App removal, and I'm not completely sure which those are. It's an iterative process; I run it, figure out if everything seems to be working, then look for more things to tweak. If something stops working, I try to figure out what to not tweak and try again. All input is welcome.

-Noel

[Rick]

I started off by installing 32-Bit Release Build TH1, 10240. After running the Windows10ReTweaker program, I was pretty impressed how well my system was running despite not having all the proper drivers installed. Memory usage at idle was at 30% out of 1GB (Microsoft's minimum for 32-bit Windows 10). Before running the Tweaker program, my memory usage has been at the more typically at 70% when idle. It was nice to see the Metro stuff gone too.

Now the Bad News,

None of that stayed in place when it came time to update online to the next major Release Build of TH2, 10586. The good news is re-running the Windows10ReTweaker program put it all right again with memory usage up a bit at 40%.

Enclosed are screen shots of before and after running Windows10ReTweaker just when I had finished getting the 10586 updates installed.

[Noel]

Awesome! Glad to hear it worked for you! Thanks!

And yes, that Microsoft puts it all back is the reason for the "Re" part of ReTweaker.

Ideally this thing will grow up to be something that will automatically swing into action and make sure the system stays the way you choose to configure it!

-Noel

[Noel]

Seems to work fine after an in-place upgrade to 14267.1000.

I did notice that some privacy settings are reverted, which may not be surprising considering it's an insider build. Also System Restore is reverted back to off, which is something I'll want to add to the script.

Just making notes here about what I've discovered that still needs to be re-tweaked...  Please feel free to contribute your ideas about what needs doing.

; Disable telemetry that was found re-enabled

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Security Center]
"cval"=dword:00000001

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\DataCollection]
"AllowTelemetry"=dword:00000000

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\DataCollection]
"AllowTelemetry"=dword:00000000

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\WMI\AutoLogger\AutoLogger-Diagtrack-Listener]
"Start"=dword:00000000

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\dmwappushservice]
"Start"=dword:00000004


; Disable Windows Update

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\wuauserv]
"Start"=dword:00000004



; Re-enable System Restore as it was found disabled

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\SPP\Clients]
"{09F7EDC5-294E-4180-AF6A-FB0E6A0E9513}"=hex(7):5c,00,5c,00,3f,00,5c,00,56,00,\
 6f,00,6c,00,75,00,6d,00,65,00,7b,00,35,00,61,00,35,00,38,00,66,00,66,00,38,\
 00,63,00,2d,00,30,00,30,00,30,00,30,00,2d,00,30,00,30,00,30,00,30,00,2d,00,\
 30,00,30,00,30,00,30,00,2d,00,66,00,30,00,31,00,35,00,30,00,30,00,30,00,30,\
 00,30,00,30,00,30,00,30,00,7d,00,5c,00,3a,00,28,00,43,00,25,00,33,00,41,00,\
 29,00,00,00,00,00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\SystemRestore]
"RPSessionInterval"=dword:00000001



; Disable Scheduled tasks that were found re-enabled

"\Microsoft\Windows\.NET Framework\.NET Framework NGEN v4.0.30319","N/A","Ready"
"\Microsoft\Windows\.NET Framework\.NET Framework NGEN v4.0.30319 64","N/A","Ready"
"\Microsoft\Windows\AppID\SmartScreenSpecific","N/A","Ready"
"\Microsoft\Windows\Application Experience\Microsoft Compatibility Appraiser","2/21/2016 4:53:56 AM","Ready"
"\Microsoft\Windows\Application Experience\Microsoft Compatibility Appraiser","2/21/2016 4:38:07 AM","Ready"
"\Microsoft\Windows\Application Experience\ProgramDataUpdater","N/A","Ready"
"\Microsoft\Windows\Application Experience\StartupAppTask","N/A","Ready"
"\Microsoft\Windows\ApplicationData\CleanupTemporaryState","N/A","Ready"
"\Microsoft\Windows\ApplicationData\DsSvcCleanup","N/A","Ready"
"\Microsoft\Windows\Autochk\Proxy","N/A","Ready"
"\Microsoft\Windows\CloudExperienceHost\CreateObjectTask","N/A","Ready"
"\Microsoft\Windows\Customer Experience Improvement Program\Consolidator","2/20/2016 6:00:00 PM","Ready"
"\Microsoft\Windows\Customer Experience Improvement Program\KernelCeipTask","N/A","Ready"
"\Microsoft\Windows\Customer Experience Improvement Program\UsbCeip","N/A","Ready"
"\Microsoft\Windows\DiskCleanup\SilentCleanup","N/A","Ready"
"\Microsoft\Windows\DiskDiagnostic\Microsoft-Windows-DiskDiagnosticDataCollector","N/A","Ready"
"\Microsoft\Windows\DUSM\dusmtask","N/A","Ready"
"\Microsoft\Windows\ErrorDetails\EnableErrorDetailsUpdate","N/A","Ready"
"\Microsoft\Windows\Feedback\Siuf\DmClient","N/A","Ready"
"\Microsoft\Windows\FileHistory\File History (maintenance mode)","N/A","Ready"
"\Microsoft\Windows\LanguageComponentsInstaller\Installation","N/A","Ready"
"\Microsoft\Windows\LanguageComponentsInstaller\Installation","N/A","Ready"
"\Microsoft\Windows\LanguageComponentsInstaller\Uninstallation","N/A","Ready"
"\Microsoft\Windows\License Manager\TempSignedLicenseExchange","N/A","Ready"
"\Microsoft\Windows\Location\Notifications","N/A","Ready"
"\Microsoft\Windows\Location\WindowsActionDialog","N/A","Ready"
"\Microsoft\Windows\Management\Provisioning\Logon","N/A","Ready"
"\Microsoft\Windows\Maps\MapsToastTask","N/A","Ready"
"\Microsoft\Windows\Maps\MapsUpdateTask","2/21/2016 12:26:35 AM","Ready"
"\Microsoft\Windows\Mobile Broadband Accounts\MNO Metadata Parser","N/A","Ready"
"\Microsoft\Windows\NetTrace\GatherNetworkInfo","N/A","Ready"
"\Microsoft\Windows\NlaSvc\WiFiTask","N/A","Ready"
"\Microsoft\Windows\PI\Secure-Boot-Update","N/A","Ready"
"\Microsoft\Windows\PI\Sqm-Tasks","N/A","Ready"
"\Microsoft\Windows\Power Efficiency Diagnostics\AnalyzeSystem","N/A","Ready"
"\Microsoft\Windows\Ras\MobilityManager","N/A","Ready"
"\Microsoft\Windows\RecoveryEnvironment\VerifyWinRE","N/A","Ready"
"\Microsoft\Windows\RemoteAssistance\RemoteAssistanceTask","N/A","Ready"
"\Microsoft\Windows\RemoteAssistance\RemoteAssistanceTask","N/A","Ready"
"\Microsoft\Windows\RetailDemo\CleanupOfflineContent","2/27/2016 12:35:49 PM","Ready"
"\Microsoft\Windows\SettingSync\BackgroundUploadTask","N/A","Ready"
"\Microsoft\Windows\SettingSync\BackupTask","N/A","Ready"
"\Microsoft\Windows\SettingSync\NetworkStateChangeTask","N/A","Ready"
"\Microsoft\Windows\SettingSync\NetworkStateChangeTask","N/A","Ready"
"\Microsoft\Windows\Setup\SetupCleanupTask","2/23/2016 6:00:00 AM","Ready"
"\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\CreateObjectTask","N/A","Ready"
"\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\FamilySafetyMonitor","N/A","Ready"
"\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\FamilySafetyRefresh","N/A","Ready"
"\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\IndexerAutomaticMaintenance","N/A","Ready"
"\Microsoft\Windows\SoftwareProtectionPlatform\SvcRestartTaskLogon","N/A","Ready"
"\Microsoft\Windows\SoftwareProtectionPlatform\SvcRestartTaskNetwork","N/A","Ready"
"\Microsoft\Windows\TPM\Tpm-HASCertRetr","N/A","Ready"
"\Microsoft\Windows\TPM\Tpm-Maintenance","N/A","Ready"
"\Microsoft\Windows\TPM\Tpm-Maintenance","N/A","Ready"
"\Microsoft\Windows\TPM\Tpm-Maintenance","N/A","Ready"
"\Microsoft\Windows\TPM\Tpm-Maintenance","N/A","Ready"
"\Microsoft\Windows\UpdateOrchestrator\Schedule Scan","2/21/2016 6:23:38 PM","Ready"
"\Microsoft\Windows\UpdateOrchestrator\Schedule Scan","2/21/2016 5:37:28 PM","Ready"
"\Microsoft\Windows\UpdateOrchestrator\Schedule Scan","2/21/2016 3:35:56 PM","Ready"
"\Microsoft\Windows\UPnP\UPnPHostConfig","N/A","Ready"
"\Microsoft\Windows\WCM\WiFiTask","N/A","Ready"
"\Microsoft\Windows\Windows Error Reporting\QueueReporting","2/20/2016 10:05:58 PM","Ready"
"\Microsoft\Windows\Windows Error Reporting\QueueReporting","2/20/2016 9:21:19 PM","Ready"
"\Microsoft\Windows\Windows Error Reporting\QueueReporting","2/20/2016 7:36:20 PM","Ready"
"\Microsoft\Windows\Windows Media Sharing\UpdateLibrary","N/A","Ready"
"\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate\Automatic App Update","2/20/2016 8:24:24 PM","Ready"
"\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate\Automatic App Update","2/20/2016 8:38:29 PM","Ready"
"\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate\sih","2/21/2016 11:04:14 AM","Ready"
"\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate\sihboot","N/A","Ready"
"\Microsoft\Windows\Work Folders\Work Folders Logon Synchronization","N/A","Ready"
"\Microsoft\Windows\Work Folders\Work Folders Maintenance Work","N/A","Ready"


; Disable services found re-enabled

DeviceAssociationService
diagnosticshub.standardcollector.service
DoSvc
HomeGroupListener
HomeGroupProvider
icssvc
lfsvc
MapsBroker
MpsSvc
PcaSvc
TabletInputService
wcncsvc
WlanSvc
WMPNetworkSvc
XblAuthManager
XblGameSave
XboxNetApiSvc


-Noel

[Noel]

Version 1.4 is up at the original link. Services re-disabled, scheduled tasks re-disabled.

Next task: Adding the re-tweaking of privacy settings to automatically return the system to its most private configuration.


Note that even if you don't want the exact configuration I've chosen, all you need to do is to adjust the lists of things it does - the logic's in place, if you know anything at all about .BAT files all you have to do is minor edits to customize it for your own needs.

I have some ideas of how to "grow this up" into a full re-tweaker application, complete with GUI, that would both provide info about the tweaks as well as to allow users to see the current settings, choose their own settings, and monitor what's changed from run to run.

-Noel

[dozerguy]

you might get me to switch back to win10 if you keep up the good work Noel!

[Noel]

Thanks for your feedback.

I know there are a lot of different opinions on this, but being brutally honest, looking out a few years I feel it's probably inevitable for those of us who don't defect to OS X/Unix/Linux to have to move to Windows 10. That's why I'm trying to keep ahead of what they're doing and keep fixing it to be more like what I (and probably a lot of other people who prefer general purpose computing) need.

But make no mistake, more of the things we like most about the Windows of this past decade will continue to go away. Microsoft really isn't bending even a little bit so far, and it's clear they don't currently have the talent to do better.

I honestly think they'll probably just go out of business rather than switch back to the computer-centric path that made them so successful in the past. They may get to a point where they want to, but where will the expert OS engineers be by then?

-Noel

[Noel]

Found another policy that needs tweaking (two actually).  This is going in the next version.

In gpedit.msc, User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Start Menu and Taskbar > Notifications, enable these:

• Turn off notifications network usage
• Turn off tile notifications (which makes sense if you don't use Apps / tiles at all)

The above tweak the registry in this way:

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\PushNotifications]
"NoTileApplicationNotification"=dword:00000001
"NoCloudApplicationNotification"=dword:00000001


The interesting thing is that there was still some activity even after the Apps were completely removed.

-Noel

[Noel]

Windows10Retweaker.bat version 1.5 is now available.

Still a work in progress, I've added the start of a privacy re-tweaking section, as well as made an adjustment to the list of services disabled. The prior version would not let IE11 go into F12 Developer Tools mode to monitor traffic. This one leaves diagnosticshub.standardcollector.service enabled to fix that.

-Noel

[riajulzanna]

I have used your tweak. Maximum windows 10 Craps are gone & PC is very quiet as well.Pure Desktop feelings...No metros and most important event log is also clear.
Good Work

[Noel]

Thank you for your feedback, riajulzanna!

-Noel

[riajulzanna]

One thing need to know...after running the retweaker.cmd for second time my taskbar Network,volume control,notification pane not shows up.when I click on those taskbar icons nothing happens.
windows key press- Nothing happens.No windows Settings as well.
Any idea??
N.B-Runtime broker & SystemSettingsBroker not shows in the taskman
Noel,

[Rick]

I've just ran Win10Retweaker 1.5 file on my system.
I'm not noticing any ill effects here. Notification Icons are all working, Runtime Broker and System Setting Broker do show up in my Task Manager.

[Noel]

Feb 26, 2016 6:59:29 GMT -6 riajulzanna said:

One thing need to know...after running the retweaker.cmd for second time my taskbar Network,volume control,notification pane not shows up.when I click on those taskbar icons nothing happens.
windows key press- Nothing happens.No windows Settings as well.
Any idea??
N.B-Runtime broker & SystemSettingsBroker not shows in the taskman
Noel ,

What Win 10 build are you running?

This issue seems like it must be due to something else (or an unexpected interaction), because (like Rick above) I'm still seeing all those things still work here on both builds 10586 and 14267...  I haven't got the very latest insider build yet.

Please check your event logs to see if something is issuing an error at startup or logon time.

--

I have been tracking another problem where the Apps don't get properly removed if there is another user on the system other than the one doing the removal.  Am still working on getting to the bottom of this, but it seems like Get-AppXPackage -AllUsers and Remove-AppXPackage (noting the absence of an -AllUsers switch) are different.  I might have to switch to DISM commands to get the job done or something.

-Noel

[riajulzanna]

I use custom image backup(Windows 10 Pro 10240).I restored windows again and applied your retweak.
It seems everything is working decent now.background shellexperience host is running so taskbar network,volume control,notification,windows settings all working.
But Some packages I couldn't remove as it says packages was not found.
Although my Present Condition is this...
Some packages are there like bing weather,news,miracast,print dialogue but i couln't remove them.

[Noel]

That some packages couldn't be removed is probably my fault.

As mentioned above, I have run into a "couldn't remove" situation when I created a second user to test non-privileged operation. However, when my main account (a member of Administrators) is the only one, the script works perfectly.

The PowerShell command I'm using to remove an App is: Remove-AppXPackage

Notably there is no -AllUsers switch to it. I've run short of time but will research this and post here if/when I find a more effective command.

-Noel

[Techie007]

    Noel, I am using the following command to uninstall apps from all user accounts:

AppShortName = "Microsoft.Office.OneNote"
powershell "Get-AppxPackage *%AppShortName%* -AllUsers | Remove-AppxPackage"

    ...and then following up with DISM to unprovision the package:

AppFullName = "Microsoft.Office.OneNote_2015.6741.18101.0_neutral_~_8wekyb3d8bbwe"
dism "/Online /Remove-ProvisionedAppxPackage /PackageName:%AppFullName%"

    Once the last instance of an app is uninstalled and the app is unprovisioned, it is actually removed from the computer.  Until then, it remains installed on the computer, consuming disk space.  I wonder how this is different from what you are doing.

[Noel]

I am using a command similar to the one you listed to remove. But I'm using Remove-AppxProvisionedPackage instead of DISM, and I'm doing it BEFORE the Remove-AppXPackage command. When I put them in the other order it wouldn't work for a different reason. It may be an ordering issue. I think I see that there's some part of the system that tries to swing into action and undo the changes.

Thanks for the thoughts. More experimentation is needed because removing this stuff is really off the Microsoft reservation. They have no intention for us to remove Apps.

-Noel

[Noel]

Windows10Retweaker.bat version 1.6 is now online.

Updates to Windows10ReTweaker to:
- Reformat output for 80 columns (basic CMD window)
- Disable sending of data to Microsoft Spynet.
- Tweak App settings that might make it less likely Apps will try to take over file associations in the future.
- Remove some unneeded registry manipulations that were causing error messages.
- Add a new desktop tweaks section with shortcut overlay removal and taskbar size reduction among other metrics.

Please let me know what you think.

-Noel

[Aymanalz]

Noel,

Removing Cortana caused my Windows search functionality to fail. I can no longer type things into the start menu. Is it possible to get search back? Just file/program search, with no Cortana?

[Noel]

Chances are it's impossible to do any searches from the standard Windows Start Menu without Cortana.

I use the freeware Classic Shell, which replaces the inferior Windows start menu entirely and searches files and folders without any problems in the absence of Cortana.  Frankly, I haven't even tried to use the Windows start menu in quite a while.

I started up my build 10586.122 test system, and was able to open the Windows Start Menu (in my case I have to hold the shift key down to avoid running Classic Shell). However, I don't even have a search box on the Windows start menu, so I can't even try to reproduce what you're seeing.

I just fired up my build 14279 test system on which I have run the above script, and was not even able to open the Windows Start Menu, so this script has become more disruptive than it used to be. I probably need to add a comment stating as much.

Unless you're in love with the Microsoft start menu, I recommend switching to Classic Shell. It's a no nonsense Start Menu replacement that works better than any Start Menu implementation Microsoft has ever done, and is more in keeping with an App-free setup anyway.

-Noel

[Noel]

Actually, even just after the in-place upgrade without running my script at all, my build 14279 start menu won't open, so I suspect just a deeper problem with that build, having little to do with my script.

In any case, don't expect to be able to search from the Windows Start Menu after removing Cortana!

-Noel

[aymanalz]

I'm used to startisback on Win 8, so I installed in on Win10. Now I have the good old start menu, with search working beautifully. Cortana was a nightmare, with web results occupying 90% of the search results, and very little of my local files or programs displayed. Even with web search turned off, Cortana was an eyesore.

I am glad to be rid of her!

A suggestion - you should give the option to enter yes/no to each app. In my case, I want all metro (cr)ap to be removed, but I want to retain just the miracast thing. Because of that, I couldn't say yes to removing all the other ones.

[Noel]

Thank you.

I think a better UI may be needed to be able to get to a level of detail where a user can check/uncheck a list of Apps. It's a good idea, though.

For now you could always edit the script. However, in the case of avoiding removal of a particular App there are SED commands that would have to be edited, and that's not going to be trivial unless you have some Unix / regular expression chops.

Thanks again for the feedback!

-Noel

[Noel]

Version 1.7 is now available at the link in the original post.

Resolved: A problem with starting up Windows that had been caused by disbling the DeviceAssociationService.

Added: A note that suggests disabling Windows Defender in order to make the privacy tweaks more likely to stick.

-Noel

[Noel]

I'm trying to test with partial App removal, and finding it essentially impossible to untangle things. There really isn't a good, viable "Remove some Apps" approach, because many of the other tweaks in the script remove things that Apps need.

I'm sorry to say that the next version is going to be all Apps or nothing - which means that the separate question about Cortana is going to be removed. I may also remove separate questions about removing other things that only are needed for Apps.

-Noel