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...