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Family PC Tune-Up

New Windows PCs come loaded with games, shopping apps, ads in the Start menu and an AI layer nobody asked for. This is the house's own clean-up: one script, the same settings on every family PC, a restore point first, and a documented way back for everything it touches.

Run it on a family PC

  1. Press Start, type powershell, right-click Windows PowerShell and choose Run as administrator.
  2. Paste the line below and press Enter. It downloads the script from this site and starts it.
  3. Read the plan it prints, then type YES. It creates a System Restore point before it changes anything.
  4. Leave the window open until it says Done (a few minutes), then restart the PC when convenient.
Invoke-WebRequest https://delarosafams.com/tools/fam-pc-setup-v1.ps1 -OutFile $env:TEMP\fam-pc-setup.ps1; & $env:TEMP\fam-pc-setup.ps1
Download the scriptWin11Debloat on GitHub

v1 · pinned to Win11Debloat 2026.08.24 · script SHA256 3a48dc33a287d65c…. The script checks the copy it downloads against the release we reviewed and stops if they differ.

What it changes

  • Telemetry, ads and suggestions

    -DisableTelemetry
    Stops diagnostic data, activity history, app-launch tracking and targeted ads.
    -DisableSearchHistory
    Stops Windows search keeping a history of what each person typed.
    -DisableSuggestions
    Kills the tips, tricks and app suggestions across Start, Settings and Explorer.
    -DisableLockscreenTips
    No more 'did you know' cards behind the lock screen.
    -DisableSettings365Ads
    Removes the Microsoft 365 ad panel from the Settings home page.
    -DisableBing
    Windows search returns your own files, not Bing web results and ads.
    -DisableSearchHighlights
    Removes the rotating 'search highlights' promo in the search box.
    -DisableStoreSearchSuggestions
    Search stops suggesting Store apps nobody installed.
    -DisableEdgeAds
    Edge opens on a blank page, not the MSN news feed and its ads.
    -DisableWidgets
    Removes the taskbar widgets board and its feed.

  • Interface tidying

    -RevertContextMenu
    Right-click gets the full Windows 10 menu back, instead of hiding half of it behind 'Show more options'.
    -TaskbarAlignLeft
    Start and the pinned apps move to the left, where every family PC has always had them.
    -HideChat
    Removes the Chat (Meet Now) button, which duplicates Teams you already have.
    -HideTaskview
    Removes the Task View button nobody pressed.
    -EnableEndTask
    Adds End Task to an app's taskbar right-click menu, so a frozen app can be closed.
    -ShowKnownFileExt
    File extensions are always visible — .jpg, .exe, .pdf.
    -HideGallery
    Removes the Gallery section from File Explorer, where a decade of old phone photos reappear.
    -ExplorerToThisPC
    File Explorer opens on This PC instead of a Home page of recent files and ads.
    -DisableStartRecommended
    Removes the recommended-files block from the Start menu.
    -DisableStartPhoneLink
    No phone-pairing prompt in the Start menu.
    -DisableDragTray
    Removes the drag-to-share shelf that appears when you move a file.
    -DisableBraveBloat
    If Brave is installed, its crypto, news and rewards clutter is switched off. No effect otherwise.

  • The AI layer

    -DisableCopilot
    Removes Copilot from the taskbar and the app list.
    -DisableRecall
    Turns off Recall, the screenshot history Copilot+ PCs ship with.
    -DisableClickToDo
    Turns off the AI text-and-image analyser over your screen.
    -DisableAISvcAutoStart
    The AI service no longer starts itself with Windows.
    -DisableEdgeAI
    No AI panel in Edge.
    -DisablePaintAI
    No AI image generation in Paint.
    -DisableNotepadAI
    No AI rewrite in Notepad.

  • Updates that install on your terms

    -DisableUpdateASAP
    Stops 'get the latest updates as soon as they are available' — security updates still arrive.
    -PreventUpdateAutoReboot
    Windows will not restart itself out from under a signed-in person.
    -DisableDeliveryOptimization
    Your PC stops uploading Windows updates to strangers on the internet.
    -DisableDeviceAutoAppDownload
    Plugging in a monitor no longer silently installs the maker's app.

  • Safety rails

    -CreateRestorePoint
    Win11Debloat's own restore point, on top of the one the script takes first.
    -Silent
    No half-way prompts: the script collected consent once, up front, in plain words.

  • Machine hygiene

    -DisableFastStartup
    Shut down really means shut down, so updates and hardware changes take effect.
    -DisableStickyKeys
    The Shift-five-times popup stops interrupting.
    -DisableModernStandbyNetworking
    A sleeping laptop stops spending battery on network traffic.

Apps: 76 out, and what stays

The removals are Win11Debloat's own default app list — every entry the project marks safe to remove — minus the eight below. Games, shopping apps, streaming apps, the discontinued Bing apps, Clipchamp, Feedback Hub, old Skype and Messaging. Each one can be reinstalled from the Microsoft Store in a click, so nothing here is a one-way door.

Kept on purpose

  • Alarms & Clock
  • Sound Recorder
  • Sticky Notes
  • Microsoft To Do
  • OneNote
  • Quick Assist (remote help)
  • Windows Maps
  • Microsoft Teams

And never touched at all, by any setting in this profile: the Microsoft Store, Microsoft Edge and WebView2, Photos, Paint, Notepad, Snipping Tool, Calculator, Camera, Terminal, and the Xbox app and Game Bar. Notifications and Windows Update keep working normally.

76 apps removed · 8 kept · the full list is in the script, one id per line, before anything runs.

The switches we refuse to use

These are the changes that break a Windows install, and every one of them is a decision rather than an oversight:

  • -ForceRemoveEdge

    Edge is left installed. Native apps, installers and Microsoft's own repair flows render through Edge and WebView2, and breaking that is the deepest hole a debloat tool can dig.

  • -RemoveGamingApps

    The Xbox app and Game Bar stay. Removing them takes Game Pass and store games down with them.

  • -DisableNotifications

    It silences every app at once — Discord, Teams, Messages, the lot. Not worth the quiet.

  • -DisableLocationServices-DisableFindMyDevice

    Both write policies that lock the setting. A family PC should stay changeable from Settings.

  • -DisableBitlockerAutoEncryption

    Only correct while building a machine image, before any accounts exist. It is in the imaging variant, not in the everyday one.

  • -DisableStorageSense

    Automatic disk cleanup is kept — a full disk is worse than a cached one.

  • -RunDefaults-RunDefaultsLite

    Upstream's defaults can change in any release. This profile pins its own switches so what it does never drifts.

Building a machine image? Run the same profile with -Sysprep and -DisableBitlockerAutoEncryption before any account exists, so every new profile starts from these settings.

How to undo it

  1. One setting: every change has an undo file in Win11Debloat's Regfiles/Undo folder, and the script backs up the registry keys it touches.
  2. One app: reinstall it from the Microsoft Store.
  3. Everything: System Restore, to the FamPC tune-up (before) point the script created.
Reverting changes

Questions

Ask Darren or Wilee before running this on a PC whose software you are not sure about — it is written for a family PC, not for a work laptop under somebody else's rules.