Windows 11 Home - Privacy.Sexy Guide

Community Wiki
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Please note that running Windows 11 Home is NOT the best solution privacy-wise. Please read why you should instead install Windows Enterprise/Education or at least Pro.

If for whatever reason, you are stuck with Windows Home, I would recommend using privacy.sexy. You can read more on why here.

DISCLAIMER

I am not an expert and based all the decisions on the information provided in the privacy.sexy program on my own judgement. I STRONGLY advise to read each and everyone one of the option if you want to use the “STRICT” option. Also, because everyone uses different programs. For example, the strict option removes some Windows Defender and Windows Update stuff that might not be desired, especially in the “privacy over security” section. For instance, I disabled the automatic driver updates, because I have NVinstall and update the rest via other means then Windows Update. Again, even if it takes about 2 hours to go through the options, it is necessary if you go ahead with the privacy.sexy strict option.

Here’s what I did (Windows 11 Home) and I didn’t encounter any breakage.

REMOVE FROM ‘STRICT’

* Clear Quick Access recent files
* Remove "Network Connectivity Status Indicator (NCSI)" app (breaks internet connection status icon)
* Disable Defender Antivirus "Block at First Sight" feature

* Disable Defender Antivirus real-time security intelligence updates
* Disable Defender Antivirus Azure data collection
* Disable automatically enabling Windows Update Medic Service
* Disable Windows Push Notification

ADD TO ‘STRICT’

Privacy Cleanup

* Clear thumbnail cache
* Clear event logs in Event Viewer application
* Clear credentials in Windows Credential Manager
* Empty trash (Recycle Bin)
* Clear volume backups (shadow copies)
* Clear previous Windows installations

Disable OS Data Collection

* Disable "Diagnostics Hub Standard Collector" service
* Disable Windows Location Provider
* Remove "Windows Insider Program" from Settings

Configure Programs

* Disable "NVIDIA telemetry monitor" task
* Disable "Nvidia Telemetry Container" service
* Disable Visual Studio Code Data Collection
* Configure Browsers (check all + remove Firefox)

Security Improvements

* Improve Network Security (validate all manually to make sure)
* Enable protection against Meltdown and Spectre

Block tracking hosts

* Block Spotify Live Tile hosts

Privacy Over Security

* Disable SmartScreen in Microsoft browsers

UI for Privacy

* Remove folders from This PC in File Explorer
* Disable recent apps

Remove Bloatware

* Remove 3D Modeling apps
* Remove extension apps
* Remove Microsoft Office Apps
* Remove Microsoft Store Apps
* Remove third-party apps
* Remove "Contact Support" app

* Remove "App Installer" app
* Remove "Microsoft Tips" App
* Remove "Microsoft Messenging" App
* Remove "Mixed Reality Portal" App
* Remove "Windows Alarms and Clock" App
* Remove "Windows Camera" app
* Remove "Paint 3D" app
* Remove "Microsoft People" app
* Remove "Microsoft Pay" app
* Remove "Mobile Plans" app
* Remove "Microsoft Solitaire Collection" app
* Remove "Microsoft Sticky Notes" app
* Remove "Windows Media Player" app
* Remove "Movies & TV" app
* Remove "Microsoft Photos" app
* Remove "Skype" app
* Remove "GroupMe" app
* Remove "Windows Sound Recorder" app
* Remove "Microsoft Remote Desktop" app
* Remove "Microsoft To Do: Lists, Tasks & Reminders" app

* Remove "Edge"
* Remove "Xbox"

* Disable "Direct Play" feature
* Disable "Internet Explorer" feature
* Disable "Legacy Components" feature
* Disable "Windows Media Player" feature
* Remove "Internet Explorer 11" capability
* Disable User Data Access

Last edited by @win11.shading291 2025-09-28T19:56:53Z

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I would say you’re trusting the results from the conclusion of why privacy.sexy is best from last year. Some things have changed with the other alternatives when it comes to tools used to debloat Windows. Perhaps they are now better than privacy.sexy.

CTT’s Windows Toolkit (or whatever its official name is) is what I feel is the best as there have been great improvements over the past year. It’s now even more robust than it was.

Of course, I do not have a 1:1 comparison of CTT’s tool and privacy.sexy so I may not be 100% right objectively.

–

This comment is to only add context and naunce, not to invalidate OP’s wikipost info.

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Chris Titus’s tool is not open source. Also, I believe @Jonah didn’t trust the guy, don’t remember why. I think he said wrong stuff and incited his users to do dumb sh* by mistake.

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This is his Github for the tool. It’s FOSS.

What are you talking about?

I have not seen any reason to not trust him with this tool.

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FYI, “Disable Windows search data collection” has a wrong registry value.

PowerShell -ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted -Command "$registryPath = 'HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\SearchSettings'; $data =  '0'; reg add 'HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\SearchSettings' /v 'IsDeviceSearchHistoryEnabled' /t 'REG_DWORD' /d "^""$data"^"" /f"

The registry value of “IsDeviceSearchHistoryEnabled” should be set to “0” to disable local search history.

Source: [Bug]: Disable local search history potentially wrong registry entry value ¡ Issue #475 ¡ undergroundwires/privacy.sexy ¡ GitHub

Or you can simply turn off the search history in the settings after running the script.

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Thank you for the info. I did not know!

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Sorry, I’ve been searching the past 15 minutes for the post from @Jonah about Chris Titus, but I can’t seem to find it.

I know it’s somewhere. He could answer though.

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I don’t recall specifically but I could look. It might’ve been because of a weird browser fork he was promoting IIRC. There are a lot of YouTubers who aren’t completely untrustworthy but are unknowledgable about certain topics: Mental Outlaw and Sam Bent come to mind from videos shared in the recent Tor-related discussions on this forum, where I wouldn’t take their word for anything Tor or networking related, but I don’t think they generally have ill intent.

I think CTT is probably one of these where I’m gonna take his (browser, etc.) advice with a grain of salt. But everything should be evaluated on a case-by-case basis: His Windows cleanup tool could be great, I have no idea though.

Basically I don’t think CTT is Rob Braxman levels of untrustworthy AFAIK.

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Both privacy.sexy and especially CTT have serious flaws, CTT in particular is very poorly put together if you look beyond it’s flashy UI and see what it’s actually doing. Attempting to disable telemetry on editions that aren’t Enterprise is just a waste of time anyway, randomly disabling components does nothing to make your system more private and will make security and stability worse

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What flaws? Could you be more specific? Privacy.sexy is really transparent in what each lines of codes should accomplish and why or why not you should activate them or not.

If there’s a risk it will break something in the OS, it will be written in the description.

That is why I provided a huge disclaimer that everyone should take the time to read what each setting does.

Some people don’t have access to enterprise/education.

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There’s a huge number of options that are completely unrelated to privacy and run a huge amount of hard to read code with the purpose of deleting files that are not meant to be deleted and will cause breakage and/or be reverted by Windows as it’s essentially corrupting the system rather than disabling things in supported ways. See the remove microsoft edge app for a simple example, all that code is also completely unnecessary since the app is remove anyway in up-to-date versions of windows, so the only thing that option could accomplish is breaking your system. There’s a huge number of options like that which are incredibly over the top despite having zero actual utility.

Additionally, anything actually worth doing in the options provided can easily be done yourself manually, which is much safer than relying on scripts made by people without a good understanding of Windows

Changing edition is free

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??

Please link your sources.

Your reply is FUD.

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Well, you have to pay for it. It’s not free.

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Really? I thought upgrading from Home to Pro is always paid. Perhaps I am mistaken then.

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ill boot into my windows 10 home installation to be sure then

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Sure

But I mean.. why would MSFT not charge to upgrade to a “Pro” version? That’s why I assumed it’ll be paid. Kinda obvious in my thinking of it.

Btw, we’re also talking about Windows 11, not 10

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Can confirm the Microsoft store leads me to pay. Apologies

I confused it with 2 things to my understanding:

  1. I thought going from home to pro was as much as leaving from windows S edition to regular
  2. Some let’s say by license agreement standards, piracy website that allows you to change windows edition without paying

I do have to preface that nothing stops you from going from home to pro ““Legally”” with a fresh install of windows

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You would still have to pay for the fresh install. That is what I will do. Unfortunately, there are also some limitations with Pro.

There isn’t with Enterprise or Education, but they are not really accessible.

Also, ave9858 was talking about Enterprise or Education, not pro.

I will be following the Windows 11 Pro Guide on here about group policies and probably follow my own guide after.

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I mean it’s not like the windows 7 or older days where you’re forced to pay, with 10 and 11 even you can operate pro or home without activating it. (That’s why Microsoft now would love your juicy data)
Just of course you’re losing customization (right click and registry wink wink nudge nudge) and Microsoft will remind you with a watermark that it is not activated, other than that it is usable, home or pro.

But of course you do you. I would like to think we’re not judging about what we do, circumventing or not of some form or another just don’t actively guide users towards piracy that’s all.

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simply installing an enterprise KMS key documented by microsoft at Key Management Services (KMS) client activation and product keys | Microsoft Learn into settings is enough to change edition for free, among other methods. I never said anything about using the microsoft store to upgrade