Basically this strips Win10 down to a very bare bones install. Good for a lightweight PC running as a media center, kiosk, offline, or very limited internet access. Not sure this is really any good for gamers as they claim.
Be aware it also removes all security features, including Windows Defender. If you're going to use it for web browsing (or gaming), I'd recommend a 3rd party AV (not sure if there's any free ones I'd trust anymore). I checked Reddit real quick and I didn't see any way of enabling Defender. I think too many other security processes are disabled to allow it to run.
You can download an ISO of this. You'll need a Windows key (like a Win7 key) or install on a system that was previously licensed for Win10 (Microsoft uses hardware fingerprinting now for licenses). I'm guessing this is just a customized version of Windows, like the Windows PE variants, which is legal. Latest ISO is based on Windows 10 20H2, which is a bit dated (although, ironically, the version I'm still running on my workstation and gaming PCs).
Also, if you just want to play with it, keep in mind you don't need a license to run any version of Win10/11. Windows still runs without a license, it just disables some personalization features, and nags you occasionally.
I might try this on my old spare media center PC. Curious to see if it would make a good OS for my old Media Center PCs whenever I decide to abandon Windows Media Center, and upgrade to something modern.
Article: https://www.techspot.com/news/97095-che ... amers.htmlThe main features of AtlasOS include a reduced number of running processes to lower computing stress on the CPU, while lowering system latency at the same time; more storage space, as the OS ISO is pretty small compared to Windows official images; a focus on privacy because Windows telemetry has been disabled; open source transparency, so users and coders can check what kind of modifications AtlasOS actually brings to Windows 10.
When compared to a "stock" Windows 10 21H1 version, the latest release of AtlasOS (0.5.2) cuts the number of running processes from 185 to around 35; RAM usage is greatly lowered as well, going from 1.5GB to 600MB.
Atlas site: https://atlasos.net/
Their Github page: https://github.com/Atlas-OS/Atlas