Just learned a cool trick for a cleaner installation of Windows

EDIT Aug 13, 2013: Adding a note to this procedure after finding one scenario where some clarification is in order. The new information can be found toward the end of this procedure and also has "EDIT Aug 13, 2013:" preceding that information.

Normally, after doing a clean install of Windows, either manually or using unattended setup, I end up with this:



How would you like to end up with this instead?



It's easy! We'll cover how to do this with both a manual install of Windows and unattended setup.

Normal (Manual) Installation

Start setup as normal. On the first static screen you will see this (Note that this in the US, it will be a little different elsewhere):



Simply change the "Time and currency format" to "English (World)" like this:



Proceed with setup as usual.

NOTE: There will be a small side effect of this. Later during setup you will see the following screen. Simply click on "Skip". This is actually a good thing as it indicates that everything is working:



After installation, you will find that you have a much cleaner Start screen as in the second image above. As it stands right now, you will also find that the Microsoft Store app will not function, so all we need to do now is one more step to complete the process, after which the Microsoft Store will function normally.

EDIT Aug 13, 2013: IMPORTANT - If you have followed the procedure up to this point with networking disabled, please enable networking to allow Windows to have access to the Internet now before you continue. I have found that if you follow the next step without having Internet access, Windows will then install all the bloatware that this procedure is intended to prevent. Put another way, it seems that Windows needs to have access to the Internet while the regional settings are still set for "English (World)" to allow it to figure out that it does not need to install all the bloatware. Once it has figured that out, the settings can be changed as described below.

END OF AUG 13, 2023 EDIT

Open Settings > Time & language > Language & region. Under the "Region" section, change both the "Country or region" and "Regional format" settings to the settings that are correct for you. Below is what it looks like before and after changing those settings:

Before:



After:

Note once again that this is for the US English region. Set this to the appropriate regional settings for your location.



Unattended Setup

For unattended setup, it's just as easy. Simply open your autounattend.xml answer file in notepad and modify the line that references "UserLocale". IMPORTANT: There may be more than one such entry. Be sure to update all of them!

NOTE: Once again, in this example I am using US English. Your initial setting may be a little different. The point is that this is the "UserLocale" entry. Here is what mine looked like initially:

<UserLocale>en-US</UserLocale>

Change it to this and save the file:

<UserLocale>en-001</UserLocale>

That's all. All the previous notes for manual installation will still apply EXCEPT that you will not get the screen saying that something went wrong, or, if you do, it goes by quickly and is automatically dismissed.

EDIT AUG 13, 2013: After concluding unattended setup, the same note applies here as the Aug 13, 2013 edit for the manual procedure above. Specifically, after installation of Windows has completed, you should make certain to enable networking to allow Internet access, then change the regional settings to what is appropriate in your area.

Will this work on unsupported machines ??

flashh4 said:

Will this work on unsupported machines ??

Click to expand...

For that you'd need to use Rufus 4.2 but you can still select that language as far as I recall.
.

what happened to notepad?

@ExBrit, i have installed about 50 or more using a different method than Rufus !!

Just to note, what this trick really does is change your marketing region (where you're from) to an undefined value. Undefined as there are no marketing campaigns targeting your global location. Thus you don't get any Suggested Apps.

Suggested Apps are never actually installed on your system, they're links which download & install the app. "Uninstalling" the app only removes the pinned icon (assuming you didn't accidentally clicked to install).

The normal Windows apps that ship on the ISO are still there. They're just not pinned to the Start Menu. A cleaner Start Menu, but not a smaller Windows underneath.

That trick (with no place holders) combined with the tricks to use a Local account on a clean install would be worth a try.

SIW2 said:

what happened to notepad?

Click to expand...

It's the old notepad. Once you do a check for updates in the Microsoft Store it will pull in the Notepad update to the new version.

garlin said:

Just to note, what this trick really does is change your marketing region (where you're from) to an undefined value. Undefined as there are no marketing campaigns targeting your global location. Thus you don't get any Suggested Apps.

Suggested Apps are never actually installed on your system, they're links which download & install the app. "Uninstalling" the app only removes the pinned icon (assuming you didn't accidentally clicked to install).

The normal Windows apps that ship on the ISO are still there. They're just not pinned to the Start Menu. A cleaner Start Menu, but not a smaller Windows underneath.

Click to expand...

Absolutely correct!

yeah, i saw this on a chris titus tech video.

I wonder if anyone has tried changing their current system to World and then doing a in-place reinstall. Would you end up with a clean start menu?

Taliseian said:

I wonder if anyone has tried changing their current system to World and then doing a in-place reinstall. Would you end up with a clean start menu?

Click to expand...

Darn good question. I think I'll try it. I may not get around to it until Wednesday. Tomorrow is patch Tuesday and I'll be busy updating every single edition of Windows 10 and 11 with the updates as well as running a battery of tests.

Fascinating!

Ever consider using Notepad ++ instead of Notepad? It's powerful and well supported.

jro11 said:

Fascinating!

Ever consider using Notepad ++ instead of Notepad? It's powerful and well supported.

Click to expand...

I just reference Notepad in my posts because not everyone has Notepad ++. every Windows system comes preloaded with Notepad.

hsehestedt said:

Normally, after doing a clean install of Windows, either manually or using unattended setup, I end up with this:

View attachment 66956

How would you like to end up with this instead?

View attachment 66957

It's easy! We'll cover how to do this with both a manual install of Windows and unattended setup.

Normal (Manual) Installation

Start setup as normal. On the first static screen you will see this (Note that this in the US, it will be a little different elsewhere):

View attachment 66958

Simply change the "Time and currency format" to "English (World)" like this:

View attachment 66959

Proceed with setup as usual.

NOTE: There will be a small side effect of this. Later during setup you will see the following screen. Simply click on "Skip". This is actually a good thing as it indicates that everything is working:

View attachment 66960

After installation, you will find that you have a much cleaner Start screen as in the second image above. As it stands right now, you will also find that the Microsoft Store app will not function, so all we need to do now is one more step to complete the process, after which the Microsoft Store will function normally.

Open Settings > Time & language > Language & region. Under the "Region" section, change both the "Country or region" and "Regional format" settings to the settings that are correct for you. Below is what it looks like before and after changing those settings:

Before:

View attachment 66961

After:

Note once again that this is for the US English region. Set this to the appropriate regional settings for your location.

View attachment 66962

Unattended Setup

For unattended setup, it's just as easy. Simply open your autounattend.xml answer file in notepad and modify the line that references "UserLocale".

NOTE: Once again, in this example I am using US English. Your initial setting may be a little different. The point is that this is the "UserLocale" entry. Here is what mine looked like initially:

<UserLocale>en-US</UserLocale>

Change it to this and save the file:

<UserLocale>en-001</UserLocale>

That's all. All the previous notes for manual installation will still apply EXCEPT that you will not get the screen saying that something went wrong, or, if you do, it goes by quickly and is automatically dismissed.

Click to expand...

Lol - I learned the same trick and used it over the weekend myself.

I saw it on NeoWin last week, and had to try.

I wrote about it earlier this morning, too:


I actually left the regional setting ot English (World) as it had one of the options I always use, 24 hr time + dd Mmm YYYY for date display.

Yes, I too saw it on YouTube. I was just so impressed with that trick that I felt like I had to share. It's such a simple thing but blew me away.

hsehestedt said:

Yes, I too saw it on YouTube. I was just so impressed with that trick that I felt like I had to share. It's such a simple thing but blew me away.

Click to expand...

I saw it on YouTube as well. I have already downloaded it and will try it next time I do a clean install.

His script is AMAZING. I went from like 143 processes down to 90 something................and BYE BYE Edge and Cortana too!

I didn't try the script. The only thing I used was the trick to use "English (World)" for the time and currency format.

Chris Titus is the one doing the scripted installed. PParks and JAM83 are talking about that one.

You and I, @hsehestedt, are talking about Thio Jame's single change to the regular clean install that makes use of the English (World) setting and nothing more.

Oh, I forgot to link your thread in the other post....