Trying to figure out how to get rid of or disable some fluff programs

Hi, I'm hoping I can find what I'm looking for here, I haven't had luck elsewhere. I have anxiety problems so please don't bash me, I was shaking the entire time writing this
Ever since a few of the builds of Windows 11 both the Victus and Omen MAX I own have had a lot of fluff programs added. I'm careful not to delete anything core. I only go after things like AppActions and CrossDeviceResume that I can't find much reason to what they do nor did anything happen when I deleted them. The following I'm looking at are DeviceCensus, Get Started, Global.RulesEngine, Global.wsw, Global.DesktopSpotlight, and two fake tasks running under the aliases of OneDrive and Notepad.
I guess I should specify the fakes, the actual OneDrive is reliant on a background task named Microsoft OneDrive, this one is just named OneDrive. If I close the fake "OneDrive" it doesn't affect actual program, also one of the two laptops has the icon in Task Manager broken so it's pretty obvious it didn't belong anyways. The other, Notepad is easy to tell because it'll pop up with the fake OneDrive and much like the latter if closed has no affect on the actual program. I can't find them or their actual names/IDs in ProcessExplorer and Task Manager. I've asked elsewhere about them and they couldn't understand what I was referring to even with images in Task Manager of the real and fakes side by side. They started showing up a few months ago so I doubt whatever they do is important.
DeviceCensus has lately shown up on both Windows 11 computers when I wake them up in the morning. I've never seen it until I think February, surprisingly this has never shown up on the Pavilion that has Windows 10 ever even though most sources associate it on that version. None of the search results can make up its mind of what it is, all I want is one less background task running on my gaming laptops.
Get Started and the globals have started showing up I think in October, they show up when the laptops wake and at random during the day. Randomly as of mid-February the Omen MAX has had them stop showing up but they still show up on the Victus. When checking Task Manager and ProcessExplorer both tell be they are under a file called BackgroundTasks. I want to remove them somehow whether it be from the file or their true locations.
I checked the rules and I didn't see anything about clearing fluff/bloat so I'm hoping this abides by the rules.

TLDR: Microsoft has added more background tasks that barely do a thing, how do I get rid of them?

@IdleFire
Welcome to Eleven Forum.

REVO Uninstaller (free) will remove most of the junk.


I removed a ton of junk from Win 11...
If you've had OneDrive running for a while... see the tutorial below, if you want to remove it.
You'll need to turn off OneDrive Backup... first.




This will remove OneDrive...



When you get rid of the easy things to remove, then post a topic for some individual things, you may still want to remove.
For example... Device Census is a topic unto itself...








Here's some other things that you may find useful...

@IdleFire

Those of us that like to remove MS bloat and/or tweak things... use 3rd party backup software, religiously.

That way... when we break something, we can fix it quickly, by restoring from a backup. ^^
In your case, I'd get an external hard drive to store my backups.

On desktops you can just use an internal drive.

These are just my current full OS backups...




I try to keep the "used space" on my C: partition around 40GB.
Backups or restores take me about a minute and a half for either.

Nothing you have mentioned will affect your gaming.

Basically all you need do is:
Settings > Gaming > Game Mode > On.
That is the default setting.

"DeviceCensus" that is, I think, a once a day thing just to see if updates are needed for your particular hardware.

That along with "AppActions" "CrossDeviceResume" "Get Started" "Global.RulesEngine" "Global.wsw" "Global.DesktopSpotlight"
Will be taken care of with the Game Mode On, no need to meddle.

Some are just occasional tasks that there is no need to worry about. Supressed by the Gaming Mode as required.

Ah, thank you! I've had Revo Uninstaller for a few months but I wasn't sure what was safe to remove (aside from Widgets), I've now cleared some of the suggested things. I'll have to read more into the other articles you sent as well but those will come in handy, thank you.

Umm about the OneDrive part, I want to keep it but as I mentioned there's a different task with its name but has nothing related to it that I'm trying to locate and remove. I want to keep the actual OneDrive, I had something happen in the past where I thought I lost a year's worth of art and surprised to find out that it was saved in OneDrive. I don't know what the OneDrive and Notepad tasks really are but they aren't related to the actual programs.

I don't know your views on it but I have been going through the file directory with EMCO UnlockIt, that's largely how I removed most bloat such as AppActions.exe (it was putting the Omen MAX at like 10FPS when active so I had no choice). That's kind of why though that I'm keen on very unique removals that Revo Uninstaller doesn't do.
I still have a ton of questions that branch off topic of the thread but I appreciate this a lot!

IdleFire said:

Umm about the OneDrive part

Click to expand...

I know nothing about OneDrive. I removed it immediately on Win 10 and Win 11.
Not to worry... there are plenty folks on here that use it and know HOW to use it.

I too have a HP Omen desk top not a laptop. HP is notorious for adding 'junk' for the Omen series. I have about 6 items 'hp' related (screen shot) that are not needed to run in Windows 11 Take a look at your services and search for HP.
Revo does not uninstall them, you need to use services to stop them from loading at start up. As Ghot said

Ghot said:

Those of us that like to remove MS bloat and/or tweak things... use 3rd party backup software, religiously.

Click to expand...

I use Macrium Reflect - Here's my services for HP junk - And another is HP ONE AGENT found at C:\Program Files\HP\HP One Agent\hp-one-agent-service.exe

@MitchInHome
Yeah it's pretty bad. I've disabled some those same ones on my laptops.

OneDrive.
All you have to do is uninstall the OneDrive App.
You can still use OneDrive for manual uploads and downloads.
However you should be aware that if you leave OneDrive space unused it will be frozen after a time and eventually closed, See MS T&C for a Microsoft Account.

"I had something happen in the past where I thought I lost a year's worth of art and surprised to find out that it was saved in OneDrive."

You should be aware of potential OneDrive syncing, it is one of the many boxes appearing during the OOBE that need unticking if you do not want syncing, it can, of course, be done later in settings.

You need to be careful of people suggesting things are Bloatware when you have an Optimus Laptop design.

By deleting HP supposed bloatware can result in problems with fan profiles, switching between Graphics subsystems, power profiles, Battery charging profiles, and so forth. That may include BIOS/UEFI updating, diagnostics etc.

@Helmut
Again the OneDrive I refer to is not the real one, here's a picture with the real OneDrive which are by the X, the other two marked with an arrow are some sort of bloat added a few months ago. They randomly show up and leave whenever. The Notepad on in particular is a huge giveaway that it's not the actual exe because in settings I disabled its execution alias so it shouldn't run in the background. What I meant about my stuff being saved was when I only had the Pavilion and had 0 clue what OneDrive did until it bricked itself and I was left searching on my Sony Vaio for a way to salvage the files.
The fake ones have only a background task host and on ProcessExplorer show no name or path.
If I close "Microsoft OneDrive" or Notepad.exe then it closes their programs but the fakes still run independent of them.