Wow. Everybody arguing about how right they are, very few actually making any points. To wit: Windows 11 ships with a ridiculous amount of services on and running on boot by default - Windows cloud services like Meetings and Onedrive, edge, sometimes OneNote, endless telemetry and reporting services, security, anti-viral, fax (in 2026!!!), Xbox, game overlays, etc... ad nauseam, and this does not count specific manufacturer bloatware (yes, even Microsoft).
About drivers: the kabillion drivers that ship with Windows are necessary for the thing to boot and run on a new install/pc. They make the install footprint larger, take up more hard drive space. But they only use ram and cpu cycles if they are installed and invoked, so no, this is not the issue. this is not 2005 and we are not using mechanical hdds.
About Linux Nvidia drivers, or Apple (broadcom) Wifi drivers: you need to install them on linux post-install because they are PROPRIETARY and cannot be included by default in the distros. That's the only reason, essentially a completely different philosophy from Microsoft's.
I may spend 10 minutes adding some drivers and services to Linux when I fresh install, but I'll spend an hour or more removing Windows garbage aimed at herding users to specific services, and THEN adding what I actually want and use (wmp? in 2026? How about VLC?).
Fortunately, solutions exist: Winhance, win11debloat, Tiny11, AtlasOS, etc.... And they clearly demonstrate that Windows 11 can work perfectly well on resource challenged and older systems. It is, however, unreasonable to expect your average user to understand or do something about this - they'll just get herded to targeted services while their systems overheats, lags, and stalls. MS, and every MS, doesn't care about your system lagging, they care about you using OneDrive and being able to tell advertisers what brand burrito you had for breakfast after scanning the fart you just put out that the new ButtSniffer dll picked up on during its latest active scan of your gaming chair.
Ah, the future: where technology and progress are conflated, as if my camera improving the photo for me, my music app forever eliminating variety by pushing me to what it has decided that I like, or facebook , x, and insta telling me who my friends are, what to say, and how to behave while I tiktok dance around like a hamster on ecstasy, and shill for likes, as if all these are somehow good things - signs of an advanced society. Hardly. And now comes AI, the ultimate nanny for us all to suckle. Just remember Copilot is your friend...... your only friend (but wait, I debloated it. Funeral for my Copilot next week).
