Jolly, I should visit this website more to spread Windows gospel.
I wouldn't even consider IoT to be the best case scenario. There's still a lot on it that is not ideal. However, if Microsoft were still targeting shitty 32-bit ARM SoC's, we might have had as something as good as Windows 8.1 Embedded was for memory & CPU usage.
Honestly guys, take a solid look at Windows Server 2022 / Windows Server 2025. There's the caveat that some manufacturers like AMD purposefully segment consumer hardware from working on server editions, but Nvidia consumer cards work fine with consumer drivers. If you don't mind that kind of offroading with chipset drivers and whatnot, this is the most comfy scenario. Running Windows Server 2022 for me has been my most stable Windows experience as of yet, and my lineage goes from AME 20H2 custom ISO ->
Atlas 21H2 custom ISO -> Windows 10 21H2 IoT Enterprise LTSC -> current.
You get more control over what Windows Defender does, and the defaults are superior still. And, the support is just as good as IoT Enterprise LTSC.
Keep in mind also for all of you, how many of you actually plan to stick it out with IoT Enterprise LTSC editions for that long? In this age where massgrave.dev exists, and knowledge surrounding Windows modification / debloating is no longer in the dark ages, being mobile between Windows 10, 11 and beyond is easier than before. I would be comfortable today running Windows 11, now that things have settled down and I've researched how to manhandle it just as well.
My needs for Windows have developed such that I'm less comfortable with custom ISOs now that I'm actually employed and need as little bullshit as possible. This may seem counter-intuitive, but if I need a Windows feature installed or job requires new software that a custom ISO can't do like some virtualization feature, keeping up to date with third party developer tools that have moving Windows requirements, etc., this is required.
My recommendations:
* If you have a rather static computer and set of needs, and 100% know what you want on a machine for example, an HTPC, I'd still recommend one of the custom ISOs from back before Atlas & others got trannified and got cold feet from hosting actual ISOs instead of moving to modification scripts. Or Linux, but this is a Windows thread. I'd also recommend these types of ISOs for Windows testing virtual machines. There's another thing called
nano11 which bears looking into for small testing ISOs.
* If you have a real job, stay on as recent Windows as reasonably possible. For example, staying on Windows 10 21H2 was reasonable until Windows 11 23H2 (depending on your hardware needs), or 24H2 LTSC (preferable). Now, staying on 24H2 would be the preferable option to 25H2, and maybe a version after that as well.
* You absolutely do not need Windows Defender, get rid of it. Don't be a boomer and click on random shit, and you won't have issues. I've been doing this for a decade with highly sensitive information, you will be OK. Most people here probably on the same page but you'll never know when you run into one of those retards. To disable it, you can boot into a recovery command prompt, mount the registry hive of Windows, find the Windows Defender services, and set startup to disabled (0x4). Namely, WdBoot, WdFilter, and others. Alternatively, you can boot into Linux and navigate to system32\drivers and delete the appropriate files. Unless I write up a full guide, you should probably just opt for keeping it around, unless you know what you are doing. Also exclusion folders don't work for saving disk IOPS speed in my experience.
Edit: Turn off animations and a few other things if you're worried about upgrading to Windows 11 and it feeling like dogshit. Then you can worry normally about your applications performing like shit without getting the visual cue of Windows being slow. As was the case in Windows 10, to be honest.
