Blocking AI (part 2)

At the start of the year, it was obvious companies were enshittifying software with AI. So I wrote an article with ways to shut that off (See references section at the end for link). Now, at the end of the year, it’s time to take further steps. Here goes.

Why Stay on Windows

Depending on what you need to run, I assume you need to keep running Windows, and just want to shut off as much crap as you can. Maybe I’ll explore a linux conversion someday, but for now, I need a Windows box. I just need it to suck less.

Replace MS Office

At this point in time, Libre Office looks like the reasonable, free word processor and spreadsheet application suite that a basic user needs. It looks dated, like something pre-Office 2007, and it turns out, that’s fine. I hated the Ribbon from newer versions of MS Office. For my needs, I regularly submit .docx files so my tool of choice needs to be compatible with MS Office.

https://newdesign2.libreoffice.org/refs/heads/master/en-us/

Note: I had to reboot after installing to get it to successfully open Writer (the word processor)

Restore Win10 Explorer Context Menu

The Win11 context menu (right-clicking a file or folder in Explorer) is useless. I assume they wanted to dumb things down for users, but instead, they hid all the things a power-user needs.

Here’s the RegKey to put it back

1. start a command prompt

2. reg.exe add "HKCU\Software\Classes\CLSID\{86ca1aa0-34aa-4e8b-a509-50c905bae2a2}\InprocServer32" /f /ve

3. restart Explorer

Turn off More AI Settings in FireFox

A year ago, FF looked like a better choice of the mainstream browsers. Then a new idiot CEO took over, and he is doubling down on AI. At the moment, there are still settings to turn it off, a few of which I hadn’t found before.

1. Open FireFox and navigate to about:config

2. click the Accept the Risk button if it comes up

3. there will be a Search box. Copy and paste each of these and then set it to false

   1. browser.ml.enable

   2. browser.ml.chat.enabled

   3. browser.ml.chat.menu

   4. browser.ml.chat.page

   5. browser.ml.chat.page.footerBadge

   6. browser.ml.chat.page.menuBadge

   7. browser.ml..linkPreview.enabled

   8. browser.ml.pageAsisst.Enabled

   9. browser.tabs.groups.smart.enabled

   10. browser.tabs.groups.smart.userEnabled

   11. browser.search.visualSearch.featureGate

This should help get some speed back as well. Thanks to a BlueSky post sharing these.

Backup to your own storage (Large USB or NAS)

Cloud Storage is nice if it wasn’t for the robots skimming your data. Buy a 1TB or larger USB drive, and either run the OS’s backup or the handy batch file I’ve written (see below). If all your files are under your user profile folder (aka Desktop and Documents), this will grab everything. Actual software installations should be restored from their own installer, your goal is your actual data. Which turns out, will almost always be smaller than software.

@echo off

cls

echo Backing up PC to USB

for /f "tokens=2 delims==" %%a in ('wmic OS Get localdatetime /value') do set "dt=%%a"

set "YY=%dt:~2,2%" & set "YYYY=%dt:~0,4%" & set "MM=%dt:~4,2%" & set "DD=%dt:~6,2%"

set "HH=%dt:~8,2%" & set "Min=%dt:~10,2%" & set "Sec=%dt:~12,2%"

set StartTime=%date% %time%

set SrcPath=c:\Users

set DestPath=%CD:~0,3%\Backups\%computername%_%YYYY%_%MM%

echo SrcPath=%SrcPath%

echo DestPath=%DestPath%

pause

if not exist %SrcPath% goto SRCNOTFOUND

if not exist %DestPath% md %DestPath%

if not exist %DestPath% goto DESTNOTFOUND

set SkipDirs=/XD "c:\users\All Users" c:\users\public c:\users\default "c:\users\default user %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Application Data\Application Data c:\Users\Default User\AppData\Local\Application Data"

set SkipFiles=/XF "ntuser.dat*"

robocopy %SrcPath% %DestPath% /mir /R:3 /W:5 /ZB %SkipDirs% %SkipFiles% /XJ

goto END

:SRCNOTFOUND

echo SrcPath Not Found

goto END

:DESTNOTFOUND

echo DestPath Not Found

goto END

:END

set EndTime=%date% %time%

echo Finished Backing up %SrcPath% to %DestPath%

echo StartTime=%StartTime%

echo EndTime=%EndTime%

pause

Kill OneDrive

There’s two choices, turn if off or unlink your PC.

FirstDownload all your OneDrive Content

Right-click the OneDrive icon in the System Tray

click the download all content button

this makes sure you don’t have anything sitting in the cloud

Unlink Your PC

right-click the OneDrive icon in the System Tray

go to settings

click unlink this PC and follow the prompts

Turn Off OneDrive

Right-Click the OneDrive icon in the SystemTray

Choise Quit OneDrive

click the Start button and type “Startup”

choose Startup Apps

turn off OneDrive so it doesn’t resume after a reboot

Is That All?

For me? For the moment. As they say, the cost of freedom is eternal vigilance. So it goes with enshitification. So I expect to write a part three.

There’s a slew of reasons why AI is bad. But the nuts and bolts here on your Windows PC is that it makes your OS slower and all these changes are getting worse and more invasive. I say that as somebody who has seen almost every Windows release, including prior to 3.0.

References

restore Win10 context menu

https://gist.github.com/ahembree/d9c7c6b1ea26b010d983c086c04a206a

My original blocking article

https://www.klforslund.com/post/blocking-ai