Debloating
Also searched as: debloat · debloating · bloatware · remove bloat
What it means
Trimming the background services, startup apps, and pre-installed extras that ship with Windows or your PC vendor. The realistic payoff is a leaner, calmer machine — not a giant FPS jump.
More detail
Done sanely it reclaims maybe half a gigabyte to a gigabyte and a half of idle memory and cuts a few background stutter sources. Done with an all-in-one "strip everything" script, it's the number-one cause of mystery breakage — broken audio, dead anti-cheat, failed updates — because ten changes at once can't be diagnosed. If you debloat, change one thing at a time with an undo path.
The Compy Blackbook holds 174 graded entries like this one, judged against your hardware — and every change it does make is reversible, with the receipt to prove it.
See Compy →