workstation-debloater

A menu-driven .NET 10 console utility for Windows performance tuning — it debloats a Windows developer workstation by killing bloatware services and orphaned processes, tuning the power plan, trimming startup entries, and adding Windows Defender exclusions for common dev paths. Built for a Dell Precision laptop but applicable to any bloated Windows dev machine running Visual Studio, .NET, and the usual OEM/IT agent sprawl.

What it does

Run it as Administrator, pick fixes from the menu (or run them all), and confirm each action before it executes. When you quit, it writes a restore.ps1 script that undoes everything.

╔══════════════════════════════════════════════════╗
║        PerformanceFixer  v1.0                    ║
║        Dell Precision 7680 Optimizer             ║
╚══════════════════════════════════════════════════╝

────────────── MENU ──────────────
[0] Run ALL fixes (with confirmation per category)
[1] Show system snapshot (before/after)
[2] Kill orphaned dotnet.exe & VBCSCompiler processes
[3] Switch power plan to High Performance
[4] Stop & disable Dell bloatware services
[5] Stop & disable redundant remote access services
[6] Disable unnecessary scheduled tasks
[7] Kill resource-heavy non-essential processes
[8] Disable unnecessary startup entries
[9] Add Windows Defender exclusions for dev paths
[Q] Quit

Fix categories

#	Category	What it does
1	System Snapshot	Process count, total RAM, top 10 by RAM/CPU, active power plan, running service count
2	Orphaned Processes	Kills dotnet.exe not parented by Visual Studio and VBCSCompiler.exe — reports RAM freed
3	Power Plan	Switches to High Performance (creates the plan if missing)
4	Dell Bloatware	Stops and disables DellClientManagementService (ServiceShell), DellTechHub, SupportAssist, DellPairService, DellTrustedDevice
5	Remote Access	Stops and disables Splashtop, TeamViewer, SAAZ (Datto) agents, ITSPlatform — keeps ScreenConnect
6	Scheduled Tasks	Disables MSIAfterburner, Office Background Push Maintenance, VS UpdateConfiguration_* tasks
7	Heavy Processes	Kills PhoneExperienceHost, LM Studio, SDXHelper, WhatsApp
8	Startup Entries	Removes LM Studio, GoogleChromeAutoLaunch_*, Logi Tune from registry Run keys
9	Defender Exclusions	Adds path exclusions for dotnet, Visual Studio, .nuget, and source directories

Diagnostics CLI

Beyond the interactive menu, the same executable exposes a non-interactive diagnostics CLI — useful for quick health checks without stepping through the menu:

PerformanceFixer <command>

Command	What it reports
diag	Full diagnostic report — all sub-diagnostics plus a bottleneck summary
cpu	CPU clock speed, throttle check, per-core %, top processes
mem	RAM & page file usage, top processes by working set
disk	Drive free space, busy %, queue length, read/write rates
startup	Startup registry keys and startup folders
services	All currently running Windows services
diskspace	Top space consumers on full drives, temp/junk sizes
gpu	GPU name, VRAM, driver version, resolution
net	Network adapters, IPs, TCP connection counts, DNS smoke test
events	Recent Error/Critical events from System + Application logs
help / --help	Show CLI usage

The leading -- is optional — cpu and --cpu both work. Run with no arguments to launch the interactive menu instead (menu option [D] runs the same full diagnostics).

Safety

• Every destructive action prompts [Y/n] before executing
• Previous service start types are recorded before changes
• Color-coded output: green = success, yellow = warning, red = error
• Generates restore.ps1 on exit to undo all changes

Requirements

• Windows 10/11
• .NET 10 SDK
• Administrator privileges (the app manifest requests elevation automatically)

Usage

git clone https://github.com/DavidVeksler/workstation-debloater.git
cd workstation-debloater
dotnet run

Or build a standalone executable:

dotnet publish -c Release -r win-x64 --self-contained
# Output: bin\Release\net10.0-windows\win-x64\publish\PerformanceFixer.exe

Restoring changes

If you need to undo everything:

# Run as Administrator
.\restore.ps1

The restore script is generated each time you run the tool and includes only the changes you actually applied.

License

MIT