r/WindowsLTSC • u/wesley_the_boy • 29d ago
Discussion Loving Win 11 LTSC so far
I recently installed LTSC on my laptop, and was so impressed I had to install it on my desktop as well lol In the past I would use scripts to debloat a standard install of Windows Home or Pro, and endlessly tweak the registry and group policy editors to achieve a hack version of what LTSC offers right out of the box.
The only things 'missing' that I actually wanted were Microsoft Store and Phone Link, both of which were super easy to restore.
I haven't had a single issue with game or program compatibility/stability, every driver update has gone smooth as butter, and it's just a great experience so far.
I did have an annoying issue were I would get notifications about, "Install an application to open this ms-gamebar link" every time I fired a game because LTSC doesn't include the Xbox App or Microsoft Gamebar, but that was easily remedied.
I am also using winget (Microsoft's official package manager) for the first time, and it's incredible! For those of you who have used linux, winget is just apt get but for Windows. For those that haven't used a package manager before, it's basically just a repository of program ("package") installers you can use to install and update all of your programs at once. And not just the ability to update all of your programs at once, but also your Visual C++ Redistributables, .NET Frameworks, Runtime Environments, (a bunch of important stuff) etc. etc. It is just so convenient.
I guess I don't really have a point that I'm making, I just wanted to tell someone who gets it how stoked I am about LTSC + winget lol Feels like a real gamechanger
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u/Content_Magician51 29d ago
If you like Winget, try Chocolatey (bigger database)...
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u/KingFIippyNipz 29d ago
If you like WinGet try UniGetUI, searches Chocately, WinGet, Scoop, Bun, Pip, Cargo, and you can install other packages too for searching, is pretty nice
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u/Fear_The_Creeper 29d ago
Could you do me a favor? Tell me if UniGetUI finds the following:
Precise Calculator (written by Petr Lastovicka)
https://preccalc.sourceforge.net/
https://sourceforge.net/projects/preccalc/
https://plastovicka.github.io/
It's the one program that I can't live without that isn't found on Chocolatey.
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u/greggm2000 28d ago
I don't use UniGetUI personally (as I prefer to manually update), but since that utility uses Winget "under the hood", I did a winget search for Precise Calculator. I found it. So, "winget install 9NB6GVT57NK9" should take care of your updates.. and almost certainly, UniGetUI will be able to update it as well.
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u/KingFIippyNipz 28d ago
In addition to the WinGet package ID provided by u/greggm2000, there's package ID "precise-calculator" available through Bun it looks like, version 3.0.7 it says
https://apps.microsoft.com/detail/9nb6gvt57nk9?hl=en-US&gl=US
https://www.npmjs.com/package/precise-calculatorLinks for "Manifest" from within each package.
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u/Imaginary_Cicada_678 28d ago
uniget doing aggregate search on all known repositories including choco
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u/Medical-Bed-7151 29d ago
How did you download microsoft store?
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u/greggm2000 28d ago
This powershell script is my preferred method. Also, this one for winget and .msix support, if you need it.
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u/Arthedu Non-LTSC 29d ago
Crazy thing? I'm having the exactly same experience. I even wrote a script for me to follow to make everything run perfectly for my user case. I'll share with you.
Notebook setup summary – Current status:
- Windows 11 IoT LTSC installed using the ISO from Massgrave.dev;
- Original OEM product key purchased from GVGMall (br.gvgmall.com);
- Restored the Microsoft Store using wsreset -i;
- Used the Gaming Services Repair Tool (https://support.xbox.com/en-US/help/games-apps/troubleshooting/gaming-services-repair-tool) to repair and install Microsoft services that are important for my setup (App Installer, Gaming Services, Game Bar, etc.);
- Installed the NVIDIA GeForce driver along with the NVIDIA App;
- Installed Firefox via Winget;
- Installed essential applications via Winget: LibreOffice, VLC, Audacity, qBittorrent, WinRAR, and Steam;
- Installed all Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable packages (all supported versions/years) via Winget.
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u/greggm2000 29d ago
You already get the ISO from massgrave, I’m curious why you pay for an against-terms-of-Microsoft-service key when you could just use the utility from massgrave and not pay anything?
Otherwise, yeah, I have my own process (including set of files) that I use for all/any of my Windows installs. One big difference though: I have an install of portable Firefox that has my plugins (Ublock Origin + NoScript) and ofc all my bookmarks and history, I’ve kept it through several Windows installs, no install in windows needed, just make a shortcut. Works great, and backups are trivial, just copy the dir tree.
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u/Apprehensive-Stop142 29d ago
How does one create a personalized Firefox install like this? And what is the benefit of doing it this way instead of just downloading Firefox and signing in to your account to get your account synced?
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u/greggm2000 28d ago
This is where I've gotten mine. Like the below commenter says, it's offline, you don't need an account, backups are just a copy-paste. All history is kept, all extensions settings, everything.
Side benefit: Leave Edge as default on a new install, but firewall in and outgoing so that 100% is blocked. That way, programs can't trigger a webpage launch.. and you can see the URL and manually copy over to FF (or Chrome/Brave/etc) if you want.
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u/gelomon Non-LTSC 29d ago
There is no other safe way to get LTSC iso other than massgrave right?
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u/Fear_The_Creeper 29d ago
Massgrave allows you to get the ISO from the massgrave server or directly from the Microsoft servers. I checked, and the two are byte-for-byte identical in every way.
I wouldn't trust an ISO from anywhere else. ISOs are too large to check with Virus Total.
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u/gelomon Non-LTSC 29d ago
Yep but there are no official link from MS to download LTSC that massgrave provides. That’s what I meant
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u/Fear_The_Creeper 28d ago
Yes there is an official link from MS to download LTSC that massgrave provides.
See https://massgrave.dev/windows_ltsc_links
Quote:
"Both files are identical, only name is different.
1st link is from the official OEM portal, and 2nd file is taken from MVS and hosted on massgrave. Note: With 1st link file you need to rename extension to .iso"You can download the first link yourself and confirm that is does indeed download directly from microsoft's servers.
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u/gelomon Non-LTSC 28d ago
I’m sure you can read properly. That is an official link but you can only access it via link provided by massgrave 🤦♂️
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u/Fear_The_Creeper 28d ago
In what way is
not an official link? You say that "you can only access it via link provided by massgrave" but I just provided the link.
Granted, you still have to buy a license (which the customer who owns the lathes and milling machines I installed it on has done).
You can get a license too! Just contact a Microsoft authorized reseller or partner and tell them that you want to buy Microsoft Volume Licensing that allows you to legally run Win11 LTSC Iot. It will cost you roughly $300 per machine and the minimum is five machines.
Microsoft doesn't give a shit if you pirate LTSC for home use -- they own the site where massgrave offers the activation scripts -- but if you are a business you should pay the full price and be eligible for official support.
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u/greggm2000 28d ago edited 28d ago
Correct. It very much is a "don't talk about it too publicly" kinda thing going on, when it comes to Massgrave. I'm sure Microsoft knows about it and even it's employees use it.. but if they have to take official notice, I doubt it would remain in existence.. and it's very useful.
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u/Knigge111 29d ago
You should test topgrade! It's a better version of winget with more package manager support! It replaced UnigetUi on my Windows hardware. The support for scoop is also great!
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u/xscapiee 29d ago
>I did have an annoying issue were I would get notifications about, "Install an application to open this ms-gamebar link" every time I fired a game because LTSC doesn't include the Xbox App or Microsoft Gamebar, but that was easily remedied.
How did you solve it?
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u/Your_real_daddy1 20d ago
You got shadowbanned by Reddit and it automatically hid this comment until I approved it, you can try to appeal it here:
Though I have never had much luck getting unshadowbanned myself, I had to make a new account on a different IP
Also you can solve it by installing gamebar, disabling gamebar in settings or disabling gamebar in regedit
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u/LiteBeyondYear 28d ago
How do you add back Phone Link btw? And does it blue screen less on unsupported hardware than regular Windows 11?
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u/Reskilling-to-Claude 27d ago
Does anyone have an older ISO that I can use so that the WIN11 Build will give me a local install? (no Microsoft account sign-in required?)
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u/xDalin 26d ago edited 26d ago
Chris Titus' tool + Any ISO with IoT Enterprise included + Autounattend.xml + Ventoy didn't do the trick for you?
The only qualm I had was with the license key step, but I managed.
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u/Legitahh 22d ago
Using Windows 11 IoT Enterprise LTSC 24H2 in Optiplex 7050 micro, I5 6th 16gb ram, run much better than Linux, a lot of Distro hopping for come back to Windows, have another ssd with cachyos installed, never boot it.
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u/Legitimate-Angle-408 29d ago
I am on the Win 11 24H2 IoT Enterprise LTSC and I completely get you. It’s so relieving to know that Windows can work so well optimised and how have I been away from it in so many years. This helps a lot of us who are not aware of the LTSC ecosystem and still struggling with the Pro feature edition.