Removing ads, telemetry and AI extras from Windows 11: a practical checklist

Windows 11 is a solid OS with a few loud habits. It recommends apps I never installed, prints trivia over my lock screen wallpaper, streams a news feed into a taskbar widget, uploads usage data in the background, and drops Copilot buttons into tools that used to be simple. None of that takes deep knowledge to switch off — it's just scattered across a dozen different pages. Here is the route I take, in the order I take it.

What this walkthrough actually removes

Three buckets:

• Promoted content — suggested apps in Start, "fun facts" on the lock screen, and the MSN-powered widget board.
• Telemetry — diagnostic and usage data about how the system behaves. Not your files; just the background reporting.
• AI surfaces — Copilot, Recall snapshots, and the AI buttons inside Paint, Notepad, Snipping Tool and Edge.

The steps apply to Home, Pro, Enterprise and Education, on builds from 22H2 through 26H2. Microsoft shuffles names between releases, so if an exact toggle isn't where I say, look for the closest wording.

Before you start

You need an administrator account (the one that can launch apps elevated and touch system services), about 15–20 minutes, and one reboot at the end.

Two optional tools help: Group Policy Editor (gpedit.msc), which ships with Pro, Enterprise and Education but is missing on Home, and Registry Editor (regedit.exe), which exists everywhere. If you're going to use the registry, export a backup first: File → Export and save a .reg file.

One habit worth building: keep a text file listing which toggles you flipped. A feature update can quietly reset some of them.

Step 1: cut the advertising ID and Start menu promotions

Open Settings with Win + I and go to Privacy & security → General. Switch off Let apps show me personalized ads by using my advertising ID. On the same page, I also turn off the language-list option for locally relevant website content and Show suggested content in the Settings app. That advertising ID is the single identifier apps ask Windows for when they want to target you, so disabling it breaks the link.

Then go to Personalization → Start and switch off Show recommendations for tips, shortcuts, new apps, and more. That toggle is the feed Microsoft uses for third-party app promotions. If you want a truly bare list, also disable recently added apps and recently opened items.

Tip: instead of hunting through menus, type advertising into the Settings search box — it jumps straight to the right page.

Step 2: lock screen and Widgets

For the lock screen, open Personalization → Lock screen, set the background type to Picture or Slideshow, then switch off Get fun facts, tips, tricks, and more. That checkbox is the only source of the "Did you know…" panels.

For Widgets, right-click an empty spot on the taskbar, open Taskbar settings, and switch Widgets off. You can also go to Personalization → Widgets and disable the board there. The widget panel is essentially a web view; hide the entry point and it stops fetching content, and the weather/news button disappears from the taskbar.

Step 3: reduce diagnostic data, then stop the pipeline

Head to Privacy & security → Diagnostics & feedback. On Home you'll only see a dropdown — pick Required diagnostic data only. On Pro and above, switch off Send optional diagnostic data. I also turn off Tailored experiences and Improve inking and typing. Required data is the device-health minimum needed for updates and security; the optional tier is the usage tracking part.

On that same page, click Delete diagnostic data to clear what was already collected for this device.

Toggles alone don't stop the service that does the uploading, so open Terminal as Administrator (right-click Start) and check:

Get-Service DiagTrack, dmwappushservice | Select-Object Name, Status, StartType 

On a default install the output looks like this:

Name Status StartType ---- ------ --------- DiagTrack Running Automatic dmwappushservice Stopped Manual 

Then shut it down for good:

Stop-Service -Name DiagTrack -Force Set-Service -Name DiagTrack -StartupType Disabled 

Run Get-Service DiagTrack again and you should see Stopped and Disabled. DiagTrack (Connected User Experiences and Telemetry) is the component that ships diagnostic data out, so disabling it removes the pipe rather than just unticking a box.

Finally, open Task Scheduler and go to Task Scheduler Library → Microsoft → Windows → Customer Experience Improvement Program. Disable Consolidator and UsbCeip (right-click → Disable), then check Application Experience and disable Microsoft Compatibility Appraiser. These are scheduled collectors that keep running even with the Settings toggles off; after disabling, their Next Run Time goes blank.

Step 4: Copilot, Recall, and AI inside the built-in apps

Start with the easy layer: Settings → Personalization → Taskbar and switch the Copilot button off. To remove the feature rather than just its icon, Pro users can run gpedit.msc → Computer Configuration → Administrative Templates → Windows Components → Windows Copilot → Turn off Windows Copilot → Enabled. Home users go through the registry instead:

New-Item -Path 'HKCU:\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsCopilot' -Force Set-ItemProperty -Path 'HKCU:\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsCopilot' `  -Name 'TurnOffWindowsCopilot' -Value 1 -Type DWord 

Sign out and back in. The policy value is read at logon and overrides the user setting, so the icon stays gone and Win + C does nothing.

Recall is the Copilot+ feature that keeps searchable snapshots of your screen. It's opt-in, but I confirm anyway: Privacy & security → Recall & snapshots and switch Save snapshots off. The storage counter then stays at zero because nothing is being captured or indexed.

Each app carries its own switch, so don't stop at the system level: in Paint, open the gear and disable Image Creator / Cocreator; in Notepad, open Settings and disable Rewrite; in Snipping Tool, disable Text Actions if you don't want OCR suggestions. The AI buttons leave the toolbar once their app-level toggle is off.

Edge has its own feeds, separate from Windows settings. Open edge://settings/privacy and disable personalized ads and experiences, then edge://settings/search and turn off suggestions from Microsoft.

Step 5: reboot and verify

Restart, then run through this list:

• [ ] Advertising ID toggle is off
• [ ] Start recommendations are off
• [ ] Lock screen extras are off
• [ ] Widgets button is hidden
• [ ] Diagnostic data set to Required only
• [ ] Get-Service DiagTrack returns Stopped / Disabled
• [ ] Copilot icon missing from the taskbar
• [ ] Recall snapshots off
• [ ] Edge personalized ads off

When everything is ticked and nothing comes back after a normal reboot, you're done.

When something doesn't stick

A few things I've run into: Home edition has no gpedit.msc, so the registry path is the only option for Copilot there; toggle labels in Privacy pages drift between builds, so match by meaning rather than exact string; and major feature updates sometimes restore a setting or two, which is why the notes file earns its keep. Re-check the service with Get-Service DiagTrack after big updates — if it's back to Automatic, repeat the two commands.

I originally collected these steps in a longer guide on AI Release, which covers the same toggles with screenshots per build.

Takeaway

You don't need a debloat script to quiet Windows 11. Four Settings pages handle ads, one handles diagnostics, three PowerShell lines and four scheduled tasks handle the upload pipeline, and a handful of app-level switches handle the AI layer. Fifteen minutes of clicking plus one reboot gets you a system that behaves like a tool instead of a feed.

This article was originally published on AI Release — https://ai-release.org. For more guides like this, follow https://t.me/ai_release1.