Hi Windows folks. I'm setting up a new laptop for a family member and it'll have to be Windows 11. The salesperson at the store obviously wanted to upsell us their security software, but I told him we'd just use Defender.

Is that still the go-to? Back in the day I used Malwarebytes, is that any good these days?

Any other debloat tips for Windows I might want to know? Thanks gang!

We bought a HP omen 16, has a ryzen ai 9 hx 375 and a laptop rtx 5080 with 32 go of ram.

The USB controller is broken or something, if two slots are used, one of them wigs out and spams the controller with fake devices, meaning it fills the controller and no USB devices work.

The second account can run gtav legacy at a whopping 40 fps and medium settings with tons of stutter while using the gpu. Main account at 200+ at highest possible setting while on a fivem server. The second account is my wife's, and she will be using it more than me.

Tons of little issues, like the network settings getting corrupted at one point. Bluetooth turning off randomly. Audio devices disabling once unplugged and not reenabling when plugged back in. Updates failing without logs.

I wish so badly to install linux onto this but cannot because the games my wife plays requires a real windows account. (Gta, battlefield, ect.)

I did a little digging and found very little help regarding these issues. Anyone else have these problems?

Edit: A friend helped me out. We Uninstaller the USB drivers, updated the bios and swapped the bios graphics to discrete mode and it runs flawlessly. Seems so simple but how in the heck could a multi thousand dollar laptop ship in a near unusable state like this? Cooperation are wack yo.

Each time I get my hands on a windows device I will try to stop as many unnecessary services as possible, to get the total processes as low as possible. I have just thrown out windows 10 and with that around 100 processes in total. Now with Windows 11 its more like 150. How low can you go? And still have all essentials working? Have a great weekend!

I have just upgraded my windows 10 to windows 11. And all works. Quite easy. I always say to others never upgrade, you will run into issues. Instead install a fresh copy of windows. But this time I tried. Just to see how far they come. And it works. Have a nice day all!

Problem

I am sending my Windows disk for data recovery, as it is not detected due to bad NAND (needs translator rebuild) or if I am lucky a capacitor is shorted.

Question

1. I assume I wouldn't be able to boot the windows installation.
2. How to extract as much data as I can.
3. How to know what data is NOT recovered ?or is damaged.

Data I think is most important -

1. Files
2. Userdata folder
3. List of browser extension (chrome, firefox)
4. Extension data.
5. chrome://flags.
6. Bookmarks.
7. Taskbar pinned app list
8. List of installed UWP apps.
9. What else am I forgetting ?

How my disk died - https://lemmy.ml/post/44287756

To save SSD write cycles

I opened a project file that I created under Windows 10, and a font was missing: Verdana Pro.

Found it on the Microsoft Store and installed it. It's available in all normal programs like LibreOffice Writer now, but I need the font files themselves so I can use them in Blender.

All fonts in Windows versions before 11 were accessible in C:\Windows\Fonts. But now it's nowhere to be found.

Update: Solved by reading the changelog of today's update to Blender. It supports fonts installed for the user, besides the system fonts.

https://web.archive.org/web/20120304202043/http://www.vtaskstudio.com/support.php

https://github.com/Seabreg/Regshot

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• Windows 11, version 21H2: EOS
• Windows 11 version 22H2: EOS
• Windows 11, version 23H2: KB5078883 (OS Build 22631.6783)
• Windows 11, version 24H2 / 25H2: KB5079473 (OS Builds 26200.8037 and 26100.8037)

Updated from 24H2.

I have to force shutdown via power button every time.

Problem

1. [Day 0] Windows and macOS error "Reboot and Select proper Boot device or Insert Boot Media in selected Boot device and press a key"
2. [Day 1] Windows didn't boot. It boots to Linux Disk.
3. [Day 1] Was able to see files in Windows disk from linux.
4. [Day 2] [Maybe SSD Controller Fail or Corrupt firmware ]
   1. [Since reverting to older BIOS and using Linux Disks App to 'Check filesystem']
   2. Windows SSD shows as "Sandisk Milpitas SSD" not usual "WDC randomnumbers" and Linux is showing it as 16 KB (it's 240GB) and SMART is not supported.

What I tried

[Day 2] [To Fix Windows] these command from windows USB installation shows

"Total identified Windows installations: 0"

bootrec /fixmbr
bootrec /fixboot
bootrec /rebuildbcd

diskpart is not listing the SSD

[Day 3] [To Fix SSD] leaving SSD plugedin in BIOS without SATA data for an hour

Zeroing Out

1. BIOS setting isn't the problem: BIOS can see my disks (CMS not UEFI). Tried RESETing my BIOS.
2. It's not SATA Cable: Tried switching SATA (data) cable used for linux disk windows disk.
3. I tried boot select key to make sure I am boot to windows, also tried unplugging all other disks.

What Happened

1. Windows 11 FROZE so I force shutdown it.
2. Without retying to reboot I went to UEFI and I INCREASED RAM SPEED to 2666 (below XMP).
3. Recent Error - For a week I had to force shutdown via powerbutton and windows took forever to shutdown.

SSD health

Now after switching to old bios (day 2 of error)

:~$ sudo smartctl -a /dev/sda
[sudo] password for lucas:         
Sorry, try again.
[sudo] password for lucas:         
smartctl 7.4 2023-08-01 r5530 [x86_64-linux-6.17.0-14-generic] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-23, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Device Model:     Sandisk Milpitas SSD
Serial Number:    [No Information Found]
Firmware Version: 0.00
User Capacity:    16,384 bytes [16.3 KB]
Sector Size:      512 bytes logical/physical
Device is:        Not in smartctl database 7.3/5528
ATA Version is:   ATA/ATAPI-6 T13/1410D revision 1
Local Time is:    Tue Mar 10 12:43:42 2026 IST
SMART support is: Unavailable - device lacks SMART capability.

A mandatory SMART command failed: exiting. To continue, add one or more '-T permissive' options.

Day 1 of error, files were viable from Linux)

Linux 'Disks App' was showing Windows' disk as "DISK IS LIKELY TO FAIL SOON" but not for macOS Disk.

# Not able to boot windows USB installation (Fixed switching to Old BIOS)

~~I was able to boot old Windows version maybe 24H2 now it just keeps loading via ventoy~~

~~25H2 via ventoy shows "Windows failed to start. A recent hardware or software change might be the cause. To fix the problem: 1. Insert you Windows installation...."~~

~~dd command is not suported for windows `sudo dd if=/path/to/windows.iso of=/dev/sdX bs=4M status=progress`~~

Observation

1. [Sometimes] Setting BIOS to UEFI only, BIOS Doesn't See Windows and macOS DISKS , even though all disks are GPT.

Recent Changes

1. Updated to Windows 11 25H2 (https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/ssds/new-report-blames-phisons-pre-release-firmware-for-ssd-failures-not-microsofts-august-patch-for-windows). I have been using factory firmware.
2. [I have switched back] About-a-week back updated BIOS, it's beta. It worked normally for 4-5 days.
3. Update Motherboard chipset driver.

Setup

1. I have 3 separate disks for Windows 11, Linux, macOS.
2. Hardware B450, R5 3600, 16GB 3000Mhz.

BIOS Settings

reset UEFI to default and

1. Turn on SATA hotplug.
2. Turn XMP and RAM speed to 2400.
3. Switch from UEFI to CMS (I know I should use UEFI only but earlier my Linux was MBR).
4. Turn off TPM.

Display turns on with mouse/keyboard instantly. In taskbar icon or floating button. Maybe I can use PowerShell for it.

It's 21002Mhz normal and 3000 with XMP.

B450, Ryzen 3000 series

nvraid.sys nvstor.sys

I was using 24H2 Win 11, I got a BSOD and all USB stopped working, I tried every thing (i took me 5 hours) and finally had to update to 25H2 and my USB started to work again.

Luckily I have a PS/2 keyboard

Problem: Low Disk Space, Slow to crawl speed after 2 hibernations

Page File https://www.thewindowsclub.com/how-to-reset-virtual-memory-or-page-file-in-windows

Windows also uses Swapfile so limiting page shouldn't be a issue.

There should be a small notepad icon at bottom left of the custome icon

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