#computer literacy

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I am BEGGING anyone responsible for maintaining files on a shared site/Dropbox/folder/etc.

If you are putting numbers in front of the file/folder names to order them

And you expect more than single digit files.

PUT LEADING ZEROS IN FRONT OF YOUR SINGLE DIGIT NUMBERS.

If you do not order them as 01, 02, 03, etc., what you will GET is

1, 10, 11...18, 19, 2, 20, 21...28, 29, 3, 30, 31, etc.

Written up on March 31, 2026.

OK, getting a whole lotta new reblogs/notes/tags on my post about debloating the AI malware and various other slop microsoft is desperately trying to make profitable, and most of them are along the lines of "I don't know how to do this, so I guess I'll just die" or "I will put this post aside until i have a whole day to devote to it" and guys, babes, darlings. It takes 5 minutes. 10 if you're choosy - and I swear on every god you CAN do it. You are so much smarter than the lazy, thoughtless bullshit programming that went into this. Here we go. Take my hand. I love you.

I'm real sorry I didn't include the basic steps in that original post, because honestly, I forget sometimes that there are a lot of people who are not familiar with github, and that's on me (insert 'enthusiasts always overestimate the average person's familiarity with their subject' comic here). So here it is, the 5 minute "get all that shit off my windows machine" explanation:

Go to Raphire's github page (https://github.com/raphire/win11debloat) to read the details, look at source code, comfort yourself that this is not a huge fucking scam or malware (and be proud of yourself for trying, because corporations don't want you to learn how to protect yourself in this digital age). Never just trust a random person on the internet telling you to put things on your computer, you're too smart and sexy for that.

Now that we have done a little browsing, a little reading, maybe a little looking things up, scroll down to "Quick Method" to see these instructions (or, uh, just do them from here, if you feel like it?). All of the changes made by Win11Debloat can easily be reverted and almost all of the apps can be reinstalled for free through the Microsoft Store. There's a step by step guide to do that if you feel like it on the Raphire page near the bottom.

Open PowerShell or Terminal. (go to the search bar at the bottom of your screen and type in "powershell," guarantee your windows machine WILL have it, probably multiple versions of it, and no, it doesn't really matter which one you pick).

Copy and paste the command below into PowerShell or terminal:

& ([scriptblock]::Create((irm "https://debloat.raphi.re/")))

Wait for the script to automatically download Win11Debloat. (It will probably do a "are you sure"/"let this program alter windows" popup. Click yes, it's okay. 30-ish seconds of "unpacking" or whatever and then you have 2 options: Default and Custom.

If you click Default, you can select your options (your user name, whether this affects just you or all users (if no one else uses your computer, leave it at "all users"), and I recommend checking "create a restore point" but that's up to you). And then it just runs. Cleans up everything, you're good to go, takes about 1-2 minutes. Close powershell and go about your business, breathing free in the knowledge that copilot isn't scanning through your fucking files without even telling you.

For Custom: it brings up a list of every single thing you can delete. I had roughly 90 things, including Copilot, the NYT Crossword, Fitbit (I don't even have one), Facebook (foul beloathed cursed amulet of a website btw), and various other info-tracking malware bullshit. Check everything you want to get rid of. Look up the stuff you don't recognize. Hit Next, this is the settings page. You do not need any of this, it's all aesthetic or bloat, and getting rid of it will *significantly* improve your performance. Like, astonishingly better performance. Hit Next. Apply changes.

DONE. You are the master of the devices that you paid money to own. You are the captain of your life. Fuck AI slop, fuck corporate greed, and fuck having to buy a new computer or learn how to adapt every program you want to use to another operating system because whatever microsoft throws at you, someone out here is working to throw it right the hell back! You are not the problem, you are the goddamn solution, you beautiful creature.

Bonus videos: Github Basics For Beginners (youtube, Oct 2023, general understanding of how the whole system works, in plain english for non programmers).

BIg Tech has a vested interest in people not understanding how computers work. They don't want you to think about where you data is stored or how it is processed. They want you to not understand the difference between what is local and what is remote. They want you to not understand that The Cloud(tm) is someone else's computer. They want you to hand over your data without thinking so they can sell it, or mine it to target advertising to you. They don't want you to think critically about software. Everything that happens on a computer is that way because someone designed it to work that way. A common manipulation developers of proprietary software use is to create a false choice in their software and then present that false choice as a fact of how computers work. The privacy settings in windows work like this. Saving files in onedrive by default and you having to go out of your way to disable it is another example. They can then profit from people's lack of computer literacy by charging for additional cloud space when most people probably don't actually need it.