Note: I no longer run Windows on my primary laptop, but I'm leaving this here for reference.

Windows Setup Notes

These are some workstation tweaks that I do, keeping these notes here for reference

Sign in as a local user

Some of the newer versions of Windows 10 make you sign in with a Windows account, you can switch this back

Settings > Accounts > Your info > Sign in with a local account

Change the name on the sign in account

You can change the name of the user so it doesn't show the usename on the sign-in screen.

  1. Win+R, search lusrmgr.msc
  2. Go to users, right click on user name, click properties
  3. Change Full name to desired name
  4. Click Apply then OK

The change will be made the next time you logout or reboot.

Remove folders from "This PC" in explorer

There are some folders that are listed in the "This PC" section of the Windows exploerer. You can remove them with some Registry hacks

You can also do this with a tool like Windows Tweaker

Update privacy settings

Winows 10 spies, but there are some settings that you can change to limit the amount of personal, and system information that's exposed. There are two options here. I do both

First, go to Settings > Privacy. From here just scroll down through the options on the left and disable to your heart's content.

Second, use "O&O ShutUp10" and implement even tighter control. You can find the application at https://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10

Disable web searches in Windows search

You can do this by editing the registry

  1. Win+R, search for regedit
  2. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows
  3. Click Edit > New > Key and name it Explorer if the key already exists, skip this step.
  4. Navigate to the Explorer key and click New > DWORD (32-bit) Value, name it DisableSearchBoxSuggestions
  5. Double click the new DWORD and change the value from 0 to 1

Now reboot your machine. You'll find that searches for things in the windows search will only search your indexed files and not the web.

Disable Hyper-V and WSL

I don't use Hyper-V or WSL, doesn't mean you can't. Instead I run VirtualBox and Cygwin. Note that this might break any Hyper-V stuff that you have running, including Docker Desktop.

  1. Win+S, search for "Windows Features", open it
  2. Uncheck "Hyper-V"
  3. Uncheck "Windows Subsystem for Linux"
  4. Click OK
  5. Open a command prompt with administator privlidges and and run bcdedit /set hypervisorlaunchtype off.
  6. Reboot

Disable Windows Media Player

I don't use Windows Media Player, opting instead for VLC and Winamp

  1. Win+S, search for "Windows Features", open it
  2. Uncheck "Windows Media Player"
  3. Click OK
  4. Reboot

Disable Wi-Fi Direct

Windows has a feature where it will connect with devices that use Wi-Fi Direct without being part of the same network. You can learn more about this at https://www.howtogeek.com/178691/htg-explains-what-is-wi-fi-direct-and-how-does-it-work/

However I don't use this feature, so I turn it off. Here's how.

In PowerShell (with admin privlidges), run the following commands to stop the hostednetwork and disable it.

Now, disable the Wi-Fi Direct Virtual Adapter(s) in Device Manager

  1. Win+R, devmgmt.msc
  2. Click View > Show Hidden Devices
  3. Go to Network adapters
  4. Right click on all adapters named "Microsoft Wi-Fi Direct Virtual Adapter, click Disable device

Note that disabling the lowest number device may disable all of the devices

Reboot and you're good to go

This page was last updated on September 9, 2020

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