I spend hours getting rid of "unnecessary" Microsoft facilities and save the system image before I install a single application that I use.

On my office machine, I allowed Microsoft to keep Office 2021 up to date. About three weeks ago they corrupted Outlook in an effort to push me to Office 365 and have messed it up to the point that I have to answer these silly messages every time I open my email client.

Big Note. I never leave emails open when I exit Outlook. It's a bug!

All of this is driven by Microsoft trying to push me to run the "new Outlook" which doesn't open .pst files.

I wouldn't even be running Outlook if it wasn't able to work with the .pst files that I've kept for twenty-five years.

I feel like John Henry. I'll die with a hammer in my hand.

Nothing I've done has had an impact on VEGAS from what I can tell- removing unused programs and changing settings is mainly about making the interface work better for me. I do remove software that came pre-installed with my PC and I'm using reference Intel and NVIDIA drivers rather than outdated OEM supplied ones (on my laptop).

I see that I'm not totally along (I tweaked even my 10MB IBM XT's HDD) , indeed mainly the interface but also for "telemetries" and MS stuff. it's just part of the fun.

I use Winaero Tweaker and another one that I can't remember now.

*All that does not prevent all kinds of errors in the eventViewr , but it's common to MS.

I did the fun from win95 to win7, more than 2 decades, hysterically.
Now win11, only shut up some apps in startup - Microsoft is cleverer than me indeed.

I have cold booted Windows since 1995 and noticed that it boots in a sequence a bit different almost every time. Maybe when Gates incorporates AI into windows it will remove all of the nasty programming mistakes that have plagued it for decades. I believe they still use the old DOS stuff in it. That's why I like Windows 3.1, it has the fewest mistakes.

JJK

Looking at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Microsoft_Windows_versions I think that I would have started back in 1986 with W1.02 or thereabouts. It was on an IBM computer with 2 x floppy drives later upgraded to replace one of those floppy drives with a massive 20 MB HDD. Later on, W3.1 was a huge step forward.

Since then, bloatware has always been a problem with Windows releases.

But other things have improved for the better since then. Back then, a 30 MB Windows update (a huge update at the time) would take 3+ hours to download and install via the dial-up internet access of the time - as long as the phone line line didn't drop out.

XP was great other than having to reinstall it every few months because of some inexplicable corruption.

There are some videos about disabling animations and other frills that come with stock Windows OS installs. Apart from installing nothing but productivity software, like DAW's, NLE's, graphics software et al, I have tried out System Mechanic. It *seems* to have a boost feature for audio / video production, or that is what it claims. It tells me there are all kinds of things going wrong with Windows and it will fix it and it claims it just did. It is hard to tell if System Mechanic is telling the truth, but then, when isn't there a problem with Windows OS? It's kind of a safe bet. But then, System Mechanic also has good reviews. Would System Mechanic be considered a tweak...?

There are some videos about disabling animations and other frills that come with stock Windows OS installs. Apart from installing nothing but productivity software, like DAW's, NLE's, graphics software et al, I have tried out System Mechanic. It *seems* to have a boost feature for audio / video production, or that is what it claims. It tells me there are all kinds of things going wrong with Windows and it will fix it and it claims it just did. It is hard to tell if System Mechanic is telling the truth, but then, when isn't there a problem with Windows OS? It's kind of a safe bet. But then, System Mechanic also has good reviews. Would System Mechanic be considered a tweak...?

I don't know System Mechanic, do you have errors in Event Viewer?