**How to Tame Windows 11: Cleaning Up the 25H2 Update for a Better User Experience**
Each year, Microsoft rolls out a major update to Windows 11, and with it comes the need for a fresh guide on how to optimize and declutter the operating system. The latest release, Windows 11 25H2, is more of a refinement than a revolution. Unlike the preceding 24H2 update—which delivered significant improvements to core Windows components and performance enhancements, particularly for Arm devices—25H2 mainly keeps the system in line with Microsoft’s update schedule and support policies, rolling over the version number but introducing few major changes.
**Why a Cleanup Guide Matters More than Ever**
If you’re installing Windows 11 fresh or finally making the jump from Windows 10 (which is now reaching the end of its official support), you’ll find that the setup and initial experience have gotten more complicated and, in some ways, less user-friendly. Microsoft continues to push its own services and products, often through persistent advertising, upsells, and by making it harder to avoid using a Microsoft account.
This guide focuses on cleaning up a stock installation of Windows 11 using only officially supported methods—no unsupported hacks or risky scripts. While there are third-party tools (like NTDev’s Tiny11 project) that can strip away more, these can also break essential features and may prevent you from installing crucial security updates. Instead, this guide helps you streamline Windows 11 as much as possible within Microsoft’s supported boundaries, ensuring your system remains secure and stable.
**Navigating the Microsoft Account Mandate**
One of the biggest changes since Windows 10 is the near-total requirement to use a Microsoft account during setup. Both Home and Pro editions of Windows 11 now strongly encourage (and sometimes require) you to sign in. This can be problematic for two types of users:
1. Those who don’t want a Microsoft account and wish to avoid extra upsells for Microsoft 365, OneDrive, and Xbox Game Pass. 2. Those who use a Microsoft account for benefits like drive encryption and settings sync, but want to create a local user folder or avoid setup-time upsells.
Fortunately, there are still workarounds to create a local account. During setup, before connecting to a network, you can press Shift+F10 to open a command prompt and enter `OOBE\BYPASSNRO`, which reboots the system and restores the option for a local account. For Windows 11 Pro users, there’s a GUI-based method: connect to the network, select “work or school” setup, then choose “domain join instead” to create a local account. These workarounds may disappear in future updates, but as of 25H2, they’re still available.
If you frequently install Windows 11 and want to avoid this hassle every time, the open-source tool Rufus can be helpful. Rufus allows you to create a customized