Is it good time to finally build a Windows 11 24H2 image for personal use?

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Hi all, so I am still on heavily debloated and customized Win 11 Pro 23H2. I stayed away from 24H2 because of people saying it was still buggy and because of the Recall uncertainty, something about removing it breaking File Explorer. It's for personal use only, games, music, some image editing. But I'm seeing more positive comments these days about 24H2, some even claim that it's smoother and quicker, that HDR works better and even some games see a performance boost.

My PCs are not even Copilot capable, but they have NVIDIA GPUs and I just don't want any built-in AI assistants and stuff. There is place for ML/AI but not forcibly baked in into my system.

Anyway...

So far I tested 24H2 on an old Dell Optiplex and it looks like Copilot and Recall can be removed without any drama with NTLite and nothing seems to be broken. Sorry, I haven't followed the drama, I know it was removed and then added back again. I just don't want it. Removing Edge also works as it used to. All my customizations and registry tweaks seem to work fine. I have the latest NTLite Home update and I've just renewed the license too to have all the options available.

Are there any known issues related to removing Copilot, Recall and Edge in 24H2? Anything egregious to watch out for in 24H2?

Thank you!
 
Using 24H2 .4061 working fine with 923 removals, and don't see Copilot or Recall for that matter.
Using different laptops with Nvidia and Radeon GPU's.
Only diff is, that 24H2 take more space as Apps tent to grow in size.
Ie. Paint is now 358 mb, which is complete insane compared to older days.
 
Thanks a lot! Yeah, all my apps and games grew over the years by a lot. It's just the way it is, and 100+ GB games are common now.

24H2 .4061 - same build, I just downloaded the ISO from MS today. Great. So, I'm gonna do a bit more testing but it's looking good so far.

:)
 
Whether you should move to 24H2 will depend on your apps or driver compatibility, and if there's any reported and unresolved problems that haven't been fixed by patching Windows or your app. Most of the early problems with removing/disabling the Recall feature have long been fixed.

I would start by reviewing the 24H2 Known Issues list, and checking if any of those apply to you.
Windows 11, version 24H2 known issues and notifications

Some UI mods like ExplorerPatcher or StartAllBack will sometimes lag to fix recent 24H2 UI changes, but that's par for the course.
 
Thank you for the link. Luckily, none of that affects me. I have pretty common hardware and most of my applications are recent, updated since 24H2 came out, nothing unusual, very old or exotic so I don't expect any issues with drivers and software. Yes, I use StartAllBack and 7tspGUI icon patcher and both work as far as I can tell. Imagine, a tool written for patching Windows 7 icon resources still works in 24H2? I also use WinaeroTweaker for a couple of UI tweaks and that works too. Looks like NirSoft and Sysinternals utilities work too.

I was more worried about Recall and Copilot removal complications so thank you for the reassurance.
 
Don't get too excited, 24H2 will soon get stealth updates ahead of 25H2's release later this year. More AI bloat...
 
LOL, yeah, I know :) I wonder how "stealthy" they're gonna be?

I build a custom ISO about once a year with the latest updates included and then I block all updates for the year, except for defender security updates and nothing else. Then I will review what crap was added to Windows during the year and, hopefully, by then NTLite will be ready to deal wit it. My current 23H2 build is over a year old now, no updates all this time and everything works fine.

Should I just kill all updates to prevent crap from being pushed as security updates? I was even thinking about removing defender and preventing Windows from downloading anything, period. I saw some "experiences in the cloud" once being pushed as a "security update" so I don't trust MS much, but I'm not convinced it's a good idea. I am very careful, I don't pirate warez and I don't download weird stuff and in over 30 years I never got a virus or malware but some protection is needed, I think. Maybe I should get MalwareBytes instead of defender? I don't know, it's bloated too.
 
Thank you both. I use Chris Titus Utility to set WU to get the security updates only and block the feature updates.

Yes, I used this registry tweak before to postpone WU for up to 200+ weeks but I wasn't aware that it can also be selective and allow security updates only. I need to look into this again because I would prefer it as it can be integrated into the ISO and CTU needs to be ran manually after the install.

Edit: perhaps I'm not getting something but couple of people in that thread, including Hellbovine, said that this reg tweak doesn't work with Windows 11. It works though as I can postpone all updates up to 200+ weeks. And you, garlin said that feature and security patches can't be separated in Win 11 but CTU does that: my current 23H2 build has only been security updates for over a year now. So I am confused, is it different now for 24H2?

Edit: I am seeing very high CPU usage in 24H2, especially on older hardware (i5-7500T) and when running Nextcloud desktop client in particular. It could be a Nextcloud issue, not necessarily 24H2 issue, but it doesn't happen under 23H2: constant 100% CPU usage during sync which results in high heat output and bad fan noise. Some people on Nextcloud forum blame it on 24H2 bugs though, as recently as March 2025.
 
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Garlin, I found your post on elevenforum from Dec 2024 :) is this really all there is to do?

Set-ItemProperty -Path "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsUpdate\UX\Settings" -Name "DeferFeatureUpdatesPeriodInDays" -Type DWord -Value 365
Set-ItemProperty -Path "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsUpdate\UX\Settings" -Name "DeferQualityUpdatesPeriodInDays" -Type DWord -Value 4

Will this prevent feature updates for a year but allow defender security updates? Is that what CTU does? This is the only thing I use CTU for since everything else is already tweaked with NTLite. I'd rather integrate this reg if it's really that easy, duh :oops:

365 days works for me as I will probably build a new ISO every year anyway.

How can I defer feature updates in Windows 11?

Chris Titus Winutil script delays it by two years which seems excessive however I am happy to defer by 365 days. Can anyone advise me how to do this? Furthermore, is it advisable to delay 'quality updates' by 4 days?
www.elevenforum.com www.elevenforum.com
 
For several years now I have been using (even though it is old but still perfectly functional) WUMT which allows you to disable automatic updates with just one click...
 
clarensio said:
For several years now I have been using (even though it is old but still perfectly functional) WUMT which allows you to disable automatic updates with just one click...
Click to expand...
I know how to disable automatic updates. But I don't want to disable them all. I want to disable the feature updates but I want to still receive security updates and that's what Chris Titus Utility does. With one click too :) Though it only postpones them for a year. I was wondering how to integrate that into the ISO so I don't need to run any tools post install to do this.
 
Even if you postpone WU 5 or 200 weeks, Defender updates still run on a separate server and update without problems several times a day.
Even App updates work.
Keep a preset for an earlier version of Windows if everything goes off track with 24H2 or just stick to older hardware that still works without AI.
So far no problems here and all computer stores are busy selling their "old" equipment so they can get customers to switch to their new hardware for sale that has AI built-in processors.
 
francis11 said:
Even if you postpone WU 5 or 200 weeks, Defender updates still run on a separate server and update without problems several times a day.
Even App updates work.
Keep a preset for an earlier version of Windows if everything goes off track with 24H2 or just stick to older hardware that still works without AI.
So far no problems here and all computer stores are busy selling their "old" equipment so they can get customers to switch to their new hardware for sale that has AI built-in processors.
Click to expand...
If only these people knew that the AI is wrong nearly half the time, it basically makes stuff up and it can be very confident about it, and it's apparently getting worse despite all the recent "improvements". Even X displays a warning that you should double check everything Grok tells you as it may be wrong. This applies to Copilot too. It's half "artificial intelligence" and half "artificial idiocy".

Anyway, there is always Linux, but I'm trying to postpone that for as long as I can since Linux is not a viable desktop replacement for my needs in its current state and may never be. But, for example Fedora issued guidelines and policy that no AI tech can be added to the OS components without user consent and all AI must be clearly disclosed and optional. There is use for ML/AI but I want to be the one who decides what AI runs on my computer. I don't need AI to write for me, to think for me and to help me run my computers.

I'll do a bit more testing but I will likely stick to what I'm doing now: CTU, it works, I'm getting security updates and no feature updates. I can probably go another 3-5 years without buying any new hardware. I might even stick to 23H2 after all as I'm having some issues with 24H2. I was wondering if there is anything to gain from going to 24H2 but it doesn't look like there is.
 
Majority use mobile phones today and ChatGPT so they're already lurked, no matter how sad it may be.
 
I'm not sure what reg changes CTT makes today. The project's grown massively in size in the past two years. Which is both good and bad. The script includes a lot more features, but it's getting harder to read the source code.

There are multiple ways to skin the cat. You can set separate deferment intervals for quality (Monthly Updates) or feature (Windows in-place upgrade) updates. Or you can hardcode a pre-existing timeout, as if you already went through the Settings UI.

Some users like 3rd-party WU managers or blockers. If you're intending to flat out ignore non-Defender updates, I don't think you really need a tool. Where a 3rd-party WU tool excels, is if you want to manage individual updates.

If you disable WU driver updates and delay all Monthly Updates, then you don't need a 3rd-party tool to block drivers.
 
clarensio said:
For several years now I have been using (even though it is old but still perfectly functional) WUMT which allows you to disable automatic updates with just one click...
Click to expand...
So I've played with WUMT and the fact that it can disable automatic updates is the least interesting of its features. But the fact that it lets you install updates manually and selectively, while WU is actually disabled, is what seems to be the main feature! That gives you total control of WU. I'm gonna test it a little bit but it looks very promising and seems to work fine with Win 11 24H2. Thank you for the suggestion, I never heard of it before.
 
I finally got around to installing 24H2. I installed it on a different SSD and kept the old 23H2 SSD intact, just in case...

One issue is not directly related to 24H2 but the fact that the Maps app has been discontinued and I can no longer set the default geolocation manually.

Few other annoying issues:

The location services in 24H2 seem to be bugged in general. The location icon on the tray pops up now constantly now which is annoying and there is still no way to control location access per application. Once you allow access for Firefox all other apps have access too. It was like that in 23H2 too, I believe but at least the location icon wasn't constantly flashing in the tray.

For some reason Lightscreen (a screen capture utility) now asks for access thousands of times per day. It didn't do that before AFAIK. I was going to contact the dev to ask if and why it uses location services, so not sure whose fault this is. I had to hide the icon, luckily I use StartAllBack which allows that. But it's an unresolved annoyance and I'm not sure what's going on.

Windows randomly forgets file associations after a while, after reboots, I think. It asks me again out of the blue what application I want to use to open a given file.

Windows randomly forgets drive letters that I explicitly assigned to removable USB disks and, instead, assigns the next available letter. This happens after reboots usually and it was never a problem before, with 23H2. I reassigned drive letters over and over but it still happens out of the blue. very annoying as it breaks my scheduled backups.

Still too early to tell what else may be wrong but, most importantly, I see zero benefits from the upgrade so far. Games don't run any faster, nothing is faster or smoother or better in any way, I see no changes or improvements that benefit me in any way. I don't use any MS software or services, so I can't tell what changed there either. Totally meh upgrade...

I might just pop that old 23H2 SSD back in and go back to the old install. I had no problems with it, it worked very well. So, considering no noticeable improvements and few new annoyances, it seems like the update wasn't worth it.
 
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