Tiny11 Builder 2025 Next Steps ⭐

It’s still early days, but Tiny11 Builder appears to deliver the de-enshittification capabilities I was looking for. I’m not seeing any harassing pop-ups or notifications about OneDrive, Copilot, Windows Backup, or anything else. At least not yet.

I wrote about my initial experiences with Tiny11 Builder and Windows 11 version 25H2 over the weekend, and I’ve been using the customized install for the past several days to see whether it solves at least some of the enshittification problems with Windows 11. So far, it appears that it does, though I had to install a few other utilities for a more complete cleansing. Which is A-OK with me.

Here’s what I’ve done.

In the previous episode …

In the previous article, I discussed how I used Tiny11 Builder to create a custom Windows 11 version 25H2 ISO that I then used to clean install the system on a fairly recent laptop. The resulting install doesn’t include numerous in-box Windows 11 apps, including high profile entries like Microsoft Edge, OneDrive, and Xbox, so it’s a pretty bare, minimalist experience. As noted previously, I would prefer to see a way to choose the apps it installs, as there are some apps, like Clipchamp, Phone Link, and Xbox, that I do use regularly. But I’m OK with this if I can at least install these apps after setup using the Microsoft Store or the Windows Package Manager (winget). More on that in a moment.

What I’m looking out for

As I configure the system further, install apps, and just use the thing, I’m looking to see when or whether Windows 11 will begin exhibiting the enshittification behaviors that I feel undermine this system normally. This may include such things as:

• Backup notifications in File Explorer
• Backup notifications in Settings
• Backup notifications in the account flyout in Start
• The quiet installation of Microsoft Edge, Copilot, and/or other in-box Windows 11 apps that were excluded from the initial install

As noted, I’ve not seen anything troubling so far. But it’s been less than a week.

First configuration steps

As I do with any Windows 11 PC, I immediately got the system up-to-date using Windows Update, including any optional updates (usually drivers) in Windows Update > Advanced options > Optional updates. I also updated all the apps using the Microsoft Store. And then checked to see which, if any, apps needed to be updated using the Windows Package Manager (winget).

Next, I installed the Brave web browser using winget and configured that with sync so that I got all my extensions and whatever else. As noted previously, I was happily surprised to see that the Widgets interface displays correctly out of the box (this wasn’t true last year), but I had to install MSEdgeRedirect so that Widget stories, links in search results, and other web-based items open in Brave, which I configured as the default browser. And not Edge, which isn’t installed anyway.

After that, I took my winget-based bulk app installer script, culled a few unnecessary items, and ran that in a Terminal window.

Then, I took a look at Windows Security, which I was expecting to complain about not having OneDrive Folder backup enabled. But it didn’t. The App & browser control had a yellow bang, so I enabled what feature was causing that. I enabled Smart App Control (which is optional). And there are no issues.

Further configuration

With the basics out of the way, I tackled a few minor configuration issues.

I installed and configured Synology Drive and got a few folders syncing locally.

Copilot is not installed, so when I hit the Copilot keyboard key, usually by mistake, Settings would run and navigate to the Personalization > Text Input page so I could configure what the key does. The options there are terrible, however. So I ignored that and used the Keyboard Manager utility in PowerToys (which I had installed with my winget-based bulk installer script) to redirect this key to Left arrow.

I also used Keyboard Manager to fix a few other keyboard-related issues, as this laptop is one of those HP computers that doesn’t support normal Fn-based keyboard shortcuts. This has nothing to do with Tiny11 Builder, of course.

And then I noticed something odd.

App issues, app successes

I was writing the Microsoft/OpenAI story this morning on this laptop and needed to edit a hero image I had downloaded from the OpenAI website. I normally do this with Affinity Photo 2, which I had installed as part of that bulk installer script. So I opened the Downloads folder, right-clicked the image, chose Open with, and … there was no Affinity Photo 2 app listed there. Hm. It appears that I had not installed it for some reason.

To get that going, I opened a Terminal window and searched winget for “Affinity.” But it didn’t display any Affinity apps. So I searched the Microsoft Store. Same thing. It’s like the apps don’t exist.

I know that Affinity has a big announcement on October 30, in two days, presumably for the v3 versions of its apps. And I knew that it had inexplicably pulled the v2 app downloads from its website for some reason. But I had been downloading them from the Store and/or winget since that happened, and it was always fine until this morning. So I reached out to Affinity PR to find out what happened. And then I logged into my account on the website, where I found a way to download the app, albeit a beta version for some reason. So I was at least able to use it, and edit that image. But I’m still waiting to hear back from Affinity. (I notice that Affinity Photo for iPad is still available in the App Store as I write this. Weird.)

With this troubling development on my mind, I decided to look for a few of the apps I do use that weren’t provided as part of the initial Tiny11 Builder-based install.

Phone Link is not available in the Store or via winget, at least when I search. But when I searched the web for it, I found a direct store link and that did work. So I have that working with the Pixel 10 Pro XL, and the Start integration and everything else is present and accounted for.

Microsoft Clipchamp did come up immediately when I searched the Store, so I installed that without issue.

Similarly, the Xbox app also appeared in the Store normally, so I installed that too. The app works, and I can download and install games.

But there was no Game Bar. I don’t use it all that much, and there are likely some Edge integrations there (including Game Assist, of course). But this time, a direct store link I found didn’t work. Neither did this PowerShell command that’s supposed to work:

Get-AppxPackage -allusers Microsoft.XboxGamingOverlay | Foreach {Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register “$($_.InstallLocation)\AppXManifest.xml”}

But then I found a direct store link that did work. For the love of God. I quickly removed Game Assist just in case it triggered a full install of the browser. So far so good.

Still a waiting game

As I noted previously, most of this is a waiting game. I will keep using the laptop, continue installing and configuring things as necessary, and wait to see whether Windows 11 eventually betrays me and this work by reverting to its rotten self. But so far, this system remains clean and clear of the harassment that usually gets in my way.

More soon. Hopefully not bad news.