I am required to use Windows 11 for work. That includes Office 365 and OneDrive.
I despise Windows 11 Pro as an experience–put aside all the telemetry and everything you can’t see, and the bundled crap and constant badgering about activating this or that service or connecting some peripheral I don’t own are just an endless aggravation when I’m trying to do work for money.
So … I’m looking for some advice from those of y’all in similar situations.
I’ve considered just installing a fresh Windows 11 Pro, telling it I’m in Europe somewhere, and running Chris Titus’ debloating tools on it. But:
Is there a benefit to installing WIndows 11 Enterprise instead? It’s meant to be used in corporate environments, so I’m assuming it’s got to include less preinstalled bloat and be less annoying, but I’ve got zero expereince wth that, so I admit the wishful thinking is real.
If there is an advantage to Windows 11 Enterprise, is it worth going even more extreme and installing Windows 11 Enterprise LTSC 2024 (non-IoT). I suspect this is probably more trouble than it’s worth, but I wanted to ask.
And they’re not providing the system for you to run on? I suppose if you’re doing freelance work and just submitting finished projects, but if you’re working off the company servers, that’s a bit of a liability and vulnerability for them.
And if it’s just them trying to push the expense off on you, a bit of a sleazy move.
The only legal way to get an enterprise license is with a volume licensing agreement/enterprise agreement.
So your options are Pro or license violation basically.
Anyone selling you enterprise keys online is doing so illegally, they’re basically reselling corporate issued MAK keys in violation of the licensing terms.
Pro/enterprise are basically the same (enterprise licensing is done via KMS volume activation server or MAK key), if you want less bloat and annoyance, you want LTSC but that has its own set of tradeoffs. Basically no store, which some may see as a positive, but it does lock you out of some windows apps that may only be available via the MS store.
Pretty sure LTSC is also enterprise only, but I could be wrong on that. If it is enterprise only - see above re: the licensing issues.
If you don’t care about licensing/piracy, have at it, just be aware of what you’re getting yourself into.
Don’t run those scripts. They will break your OS at next update. See attached setup guide to get W11 without all annoyances and to under 4GB (some of it is just personal preferences)
LTSC/IOT will not update features and stay on 24H2. This can be nice, but if you get a lot of new hardware and software, this may be a problem. In 2028, some software may require more than 24H2, for example. I use IOT, BTW. Google for how to get it.
IOT doesn’t have all codecs, store etc. You can add those manually, but at some point that is more hassle than suing the Pro and remove things.
