What you need to know
- A recently leaked "Government Edition" of Windows 11 has been making the rounds.
- It reportedly includes zero telemetry tracking and no in-box apps, designed exclusively for government use.
- Unsurprisingly, the leaked edition is seemingly a fake, created by a third-party using custom tools.
In the last couple of weeks, a small group of Windows enthusiasts has been enamored with a newly leaked build of Windows 11 dubbed “Government Edition” that reportedly shipped without telemetry tracking and is “maximally debloated” with no in-box apps or services that aren’t core to the OS.
Such an edition of Windows sounds enticing to many PC enthusiasts who need to use Windows but aren’t interested in any of the apps or services Microsoft has to offer. However, (and perhaps unsurprisingly,) it appears this “Government Edition” of Windows 11 is too good to be true. Thanks to some sleuthing from pivotman319, it seems this leaked build is a hacked-together job done by a third party.
Specifically, the fake Windows 11 Government Edition ISO is based on Windows 11 Pro, merged with some left-over Enterprise G edition packages that were recently discovered on Windows Update servers. For those unaware, the “Enterprise G” SKU was an edition of Windows 10 announced back in 2017 that was specifically for the Chinese government.
The third party then went further by manually debloating the OS of all the in-box apps, setting the image to automatically activate Windows using a custom Activation Script, going the extra length to hide their efforts by deleting CBS logs, and then created a custom ISO with a bogus title that made it seem official.
Simply put, Windows 11 Government Edition is fake. There is no official “government” edition of Windows outside of Enterprise G that’s only available in China, and that doesn’t debloat the OS nearly as much as this fake “Government Edition” does. Microsoft recommends governments around the world use the standard Windows 11 Enterprise instead.
If you were one of many who downloaded and installed this fake Windows 11 Government Edition ISO over the last couple of weeks, we’d recommend you get rid of that as soon as possible.
