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Minimal, debloated, configured Windows 11 QEMU image for software support

Hey people!

I love Linux and would really prefer not needing Windows, but… Software.

I made a Qemu Image with Win11 and all the tweaks available pretty much

  • local account with the offline trick
  • ran Bulk Crap uninstaller and removed pretty much everything
  • ran WinUtil by Chris Titus
    • only security updates
    • disabled unnecessary features
    • removed Edge
  • installed Firefox with some basic setup
  • installed Simplewall, enabled Simplewall (MS Store currently does not work, no idea)
  • installed all the virtIO drivers, even drag&drop and internet work

Apart from that the image is a s minimal as possible.

Its a 6GB compressed Qemu image with 60GB uncompressed afaik. The image runs using virt-managers default settings, using TianoCoer UEFI and TPM passthrough

Its in German, and no idea if Windows even allows changing the language. Its Windows 11 Professional, but doesnt include a license.

Followup

Of course I cant guarantee anything as this stuff is proprietary and hashes would probably never be the same on any install due to proprietary magic soup.

Hit me up on SimpleX if you want a link, I shouldn’t share it here

mykneedoesnthurt ,
@mykneedoesnthurt@kbin.social avatar

ayo lemme put some malware in this sheeeeeiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiitttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt

signofzeta ,

Instead of sharing the image, why not share the scripts or steps used to make it? Other people raised some fine points, but for me, my German is very poor.

Guenther_Amanita , (edited )

I find that really cool, BUT, you should delete that link.

First, installing a tweaked Windows version from somebody else is risky. It’s hard to check if you included malware for example. I mean, I trust you that you didn’t do that, but it’s still risky. That alone isn’t the reason you should delete it. If I install a malware-version, it’s my fault, who cares.

The real reason you should delete that immediately is because it’s illegal! The licence doesn’t allow you to share Windows. With scripts on your own install its a grey area, but sharing installs or isos is definitely not allowed and everyone here could report you for that to MS, the police, the admins, whoever.

Anzeige ist raus! (Jk)

plague_sapiens ,
@plague_sapiens@lemmy.world avatar

Not a good idea, to share copyrighted material with your university account. Especially in DE. Archive.org would suit better!

Nevertheless thanks for your work and I would recommend to include Dism++ and maybe use an Enterprise version of Win11. But yeah, versions can be easily changed with Massgravel’s activator.

Pantherina OP ,

I dont really want to make them trouble? But some solution like this would be best, maybe a personal onionshare but thats slow AF.

Pantherina OP ,

What makes Enterprise Windows different? But that tool sounds cool!

plague_sapiens ,
@plague_sapiens@lemmy.world avatar

Usually less bloat ootb and less/no feature updates, longer update support. But actually I haven’t compared those Win11 versions by myself. I use Enterprise versions since Win7, with Win10 Iot Enterprise LTSC being the best version of all (at least currently) and it has support till 2032 :)

Pantherina OP ,

Okay thats crazy! I think Win10 is unusable and Win11 us a bit better and also worse, like an Explorer with Tabs wtf how long did that take? But the apps seem very bloated too, using bad libraries or something, its just slow. But I am quite happy with my setup currently, will switch the VM to Win11 enterprise if Win12 is even worse

heeplr ,

that’d be an awesome way to spread malware with some VM evasion.

not sure if any 3rd-party windows install should ever be trusted. no matter what usecase.

plague_sapiens ,
@plague_sapiens@lemmy.world avatar

Windows should never be trusted in the first place. Fuck proprietary software…

Pantherina OP ,

I mean… just check the code? Oh, anyways…

Windows sucks.

heeplr ,

You could do some automated/scripted installation VM-image builder thingy and release that. Would probably also save some manual work for you. (bash script fetching install image & run qemu, autounattend.xml, etc. all nicely released on github.) And it’d be auditable.

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