What About a De-Enshittify Windows 11 Field Guide? ⭐

In struggling to find a more concise format for the next Windows 11 Field Guide, a new possibility emerged. Given my recent focus, perhaps a companion work, a De-Enshittify Windows 11 Field Guide, or whatever, might make more sense to start. This will give me time to keep refining the new format for the bigger book, and it aligns nicely with what's happening now with Windows.

Without worrying too much yet about how this will be distributed—most likely an e-book like the other books, but shorter and much less expensive, plus a series of articles here on the site—I did want to at least outline the form it might take and get some feedback. Nothing here is decided per se, these are just some ideas. But it's coming together more quickly than the other book, so this is perhaps something I could put together soon.

Where the Windows 11 Field Guide is a reference, essentially, the De-Enshittify Windows 11 Field Guide would be more of a how-to.

At this time, there are two key components to this book (which, I should note, I always think in terms of books for this kind of content, though that might be outdated in some ways). There's the table of contents (TOC), which is pretty standard, and then just a general style for dealing with smaller topics.

This is not a final TOC by any means, but it could look something like this.

Starting fresh with a new install of Windows 11
De-enshittify an existing install of Windows 11
De-enshittify Microsoft Edge whether you use it or not
De-enshittify Windows 11 apps
Replace enshittified Windows 11 apps
Make Windows 11 more secure
Make Windows 11 respect your privacy
Improve Windows 11 with PowerToys

That bit is pretty straightforward, but what I'm slightly more interested in is tied to my desire to make the big book more concise: A series of problems/solutions that could be used throughout the book to address literal enshittification but also other pain points in Windows 11.

And the format of this content, though still up in the air as well, is kind of fun. To build it out a bit, I looked at several chapters of the current Windows 11 Field Guide and pulled out some how-tos with solutions and/or workarounds. Here are just a few examples.
Windows Setup
? The enshittification: I can't install or upgrade to Windows 11 on my PC because it doesn't meet the hardware requirements.

? The solution: Download the Windows 11 ISO file from Microsoft and use Rufus to create the USB-based installation media. Rufus provides an option, "Remove requirement for 4GB+ RAM, Secure Boot and TPM 2.0," that eliminates the hardware requirement blocks.

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? The enshittification: Windows 11 Setup forces me to sign in with a Microsoft account or Microsoft work or school account, but I want to use a local account

? A workaround: Sign in with a Microsoft account and then convert it to a local account after you've reached the Desktop. You can do this with the Settings app by navigating to...