Why you should NEVER use 'Gaming ISOs'

Why you should NEVER use "Gaming ISOs"

Chapters:
0:00 Intro & Benchmarks
2:30 FoxOS "Tweak Discord"
4:17 Installation
6:29 GhostSpectre
8:01 FoxOS
15:00 Setting up and Debloating Retail Windows 11
- Kinissue x Umiar - Promisue Due
- Provided by Lofi Records
- Watch: • Kinissue x Umiar - Promisue Due

Disclaimer: The content in this video is for education and entertainment purposes to showcase the dangers of malware & malicious software. I do not encourage any form of illegal hacking, nor do I encourage the usage of game cheats, cracks or hacks.

(C) Eric Parker 2024

[charliesretrocomputing]

Solution: don't use gaming ISOs, use real Windows 11 or make your own debloated ISO with NTLite, MicroWin, etc

[that_is_not_me]

>remove Microsoft bloat
>proceed to bundle your own bloat

[BridgetGX]

I'm glad this is about bootleg Windows installations and not about the PS2, PSP and GameCube games I download

[pattyguy]

Its unfortunate how most of bootleg ISOs end up being windows with extra bloat or malware

[oussama]

UACs being off increases performance and efficiency... Of the viruses

[rkidy]

Debloating your OS is like removing junk from your house.

Removing your anti-malware software is like removing the walls and roof of your house.

Edit: the main point of the House analogy is that you do not have full control over malware getting onto your computer. A new vulnerability may be found, a worm may enter your network. These are not things you can prevent with “not downloading sketchy files”.

To use the house analogy, it’s like removing your front door and saying “it’ll be fine unless you bring a criminal into your house on purpose.” As if a criminal cannot now just walk in on their own.

[clewless]

Reading through these comments it's clear the majority people have no idea what has an impact on performance and security. With that in mind it's no wonder there is a market for these "improved" Windows ISO's.

[MUFCTom]

What the whole simple main problem is: you don’t know what any old joey has done to the OS to debloat it…

[possiblynocturnal]

If anyone wants to have a "debloated" windows, just grab and ltsc iso and use something like chris titus' tool afterwards. Putting your trust into some random small group of people releasing "gaming" windows isos is, uh, not a great idea.

[pcsecuritychannel]

This video while technically accurate in its general description is clearly being misinterpreted by people in the comments. iso's like Ghost Spectre aren't malware or bloated, they actually do exactly what they say, the issue presented here is removing a bunch of security features and updates may lead to you being vulnerable to malware in the long run, however I'd argue that can be mitigated by using your own 3rd party solution that will be miles better than the default "windows security" anyway. Also, you are totally right about the performance difference being non-existent but I'd argue a lot of these so called "security features" and addons are more of an annoyance than anything and a lot of us want a simpler system where we actually can control what's happening. That's why I'd be tempted to use a custom iso, not for better performance but to have a closer to Windows 7 experience.

[oussama]

Basically don't use them unless the machine is completely offline at all times. You won't be able to run the majority of pc games, and even if you run emulators, you'd need to manually update every time if you want to emulate an old console
I'd probably think of using these to run windows off a usb 2 drive and share ntfs drives on the local network

[mqbgofjzkkonzx]

Disabling the firewall for better performance would be like disabling all the locks on your car to make it go faster.

[daniel_.]

Solution: Debloat your own Windows using specific tools, or use linux.

Edit: People arguing in the reply section saying that linux is not that good for gaming.
I haven't clarified enough, so what i meant to say is that if you tried using tools e.g. NTlite, and you're not satisfied, maybe switching to linux is the last option.

[SeamanLord]

I Can’t wait for my cousin to ask for help installing “WINDOWS 11/10/9/7 EXTREME GAMING CUSTOM ISO UNLIMITED RAM 8k TEXTURES”.
Idk how you choose these video ideas but too many have been relevant in my battle to teach him basic internet etiquette😂

Keep up the great work, I can’t believe it’s already almost 50k🎉🥳

[larsk]

"They made it like XP where the icons don't group"

That's actually a good thing, in my opinion. I hated it when MS killed that from W11 and brought it back in a half baked fashion, so I have to use a 3rd party program to fix that. When ungrouped, I can more easily see what window to open that contains a specific document or whatever. When combined, I have to hover over the combined icon first.

[alvinlepik]

I have win 10 the ghostspectre version, not because of the alleged performance boost (there is, but it's negligible), but rather for convenience - the ghost toolbox comes in handy. Everything useless is already disabled. That said, lots of services/policies are disabled by default so if one doesn't know what to look for when some specific hardware isn't working, it's definitely less hassle installing ms version.

[LeonAlkoholik]

Firewalls are actually good for performance, so I don't get why they disable it. Windows Firewall has an algorithm to detect DDoS attacks and can in most cases prevent those just fine, aside that a Firewall can be really helpful in other security cases. Also my guess is, that UAC was disabled, was maybe because the ISO makers thought "UAC is probably annoying to gamers, let's just deactivate it". I do get that UAC is annoying, and I have it off myself, on one machine, but for the average uninformed user it's a much better idea to have it on.

[BxPanda]

Windows defender caused major lag on my pc as it kept scanning trough my hard drives, so I removed it, now I just regularly scan my pc with multiple non-install anti-malware tools, never had an issue.

[Bloom]

What Atlas does better than any gaming isos is that they give you the options if you want to disable the windows security measures or not

[thisislocombia]

debloating vanilla windows will always be the best option, don't trust shady 3rd parties.