Tin-Foiling Win10 (Hardening the ISO)

[stablish]

Hey all,

I'm now using a "Hardened" (Tin-Foiled, if you want it this way) Win10 pro ISO, for over 6-7 months now.

I used a tool from the MDL Forums, but I'm missing some stuff, so I was thinking about to not harden the ISO that much.

I would like to know who of you is using all the Win10 features and apps. I mean there's a replacement for almost all of the apps and features (Calculator = old calc, Photoviewer = xnview, Hyper-V = VMware, Search = everything search, etc.).

Basically, I do use Social media sites, kinda a lot, so there's actually no reason to harden a Win10 ISO that much, I also don't do any black hat stuff, but still don't like the telemetry (which I still will remove from the ISO), but the other apps and features could be helpful and wouldnt need a replacement to fill my HDD with alternative tools while they are implemented native.

Hard to explain or ask the right way... Bascially I want to find a decent mix between privacy, but still keep the useful stuff. Harden down the ISO is nice, but I would need to find replacements and since I still do use social media, there isnt a real reason to have a hardcore stripped down Win10, or?

So, who of you uses the features, the apps and even cortana?

Since I don't do gaming, I don't mind about some resources the features are using, especially cortana and search, which can use a bit of my system resources.

Greetings.

 

[shmu26]

I would do it the other way around.
install windows 10 with default settings, and then whatever gets in your face, you can uninstall or disable it, or uncheck it in windows features, or set to manual start in windows services, or turn it off in group policy.

 

[stablish]

Thanks. Yeah, that would be another alternative. Can cortana + search be completely disabled/removed via GPO? I remember when I tried on the first Win10 builds it still was in the process list. I mean, it is okay, but if I'm going to disabled cortana and search, I dont want them in my processes, just in case.

Also, from looking around some desktop screenshots, so many people use cortana and search, including the windows10 start menu.. never got into it, since I install classicshell instantly after a fresh install, might look into it, just need to find a decent balance in what stuff I need and what not.

 

[Deleted member 178]

"Hardened" is not the proper word, you should say "customized".
Hardening is about increasing the default security via various tweaks.

the privacy thing is overexagerated, so i dont even care of it. i just disabled some features because i dont need them, not because of privacy concerns.

Win10 start menu is far more convenient to me than any 3rd party versions.
Less 3rd party apps , less surface attack vectors.

Metro apps are far more safer than any 3rd party apps because of Appcontainer, so unless i need a specific feature , they are good enough to me. Anyway 90% of the soft i use are portable apps.

 

[AlphaBeta]

Thanks. Yeah, that would be another alternative. Can cortana + search be completely disabled/removed via GPO? I remember when I tried on the first Win10 builds it still was in the process list. I mean, it is okay, but if I'm going to disabled cortana and search, I dont want them in my processes, just in case.

Also, from looking around some desktop screenshots, so many people use cortana and search, including the windows10 start menu.. never got into it, since I install classicshell instantly after a fresh install, might look into it, just need to find a decent balance in what stuff I need and what not.

I used a tool called DoNotSpy10 for disabling Cortana. Better to just install normal windows and disable whatever you don't need from group policy.

 

[jamescv7]

The built in of Windows 10 security is already above average on what industry standard should have, actually as mentioned its matter disabling some optional functionalities.

I think you need to have Anti-Exe to harden it more.