Radeon Software Slimmer: deciding what AMD's driver bundle installs

The problem is the 2020 Edition feature dump

Radeon Software Slimmer is a utility to trim down the bloat with Radeon Software for AMD GPUs on Microsoft Windows. The context it was written for is specific. Radeon Software Adrenalin 2020 Edition introduced a ton of new features, and while many users enjoy those features, there are some that other users do not. The complaint those users have is that the software contains a lot of unnecessary bloat without much control over what gets installed or what is running in the background. The utility is aimed squarely at those users who want to keep their systems as slim as possible. The project also says plainly that it is not meant to disrespect AMD or its employees, and that it was inspired by the NVIDIA driver slimming utility, which is an admission that the same complaint was heard about the other vendor's package first.

No telemetry, no network, no persistent state

The privacy claim is the strongest part of the project description and worth reading carefully. Radeon Software Slimmer is completely free and open source, it does not contain any advertisements, telemetry, or reach out to the internet, and logging is captured within the application for troubleshooting purposes but does not write to file or leave the application unless you explicitly do so. That last part is the detail that separates this from the kind of tool that claims to be private while quietly writing a log somewhere. For a utility whose entire job is to modify another vendor's driver package on your machine, being explicit about what leaves the machine and what stays inside it is the sort of thing that has to be stated rather than assumed.

What you need and how to install it

The requirements are administrator rights, Windows 10 64-bit or Windows 11 with the latest version recommended, and one of three runtimes: the .NET Framework 4.8 Runtime, which is included with Windows 10 1903 from the May 2019 update onwards, the .NET Framework 4.8.1 Runtime, included with Windows 11 22H2 and later, or the .NET Desktop Runtime 10.0 x64, with the latest release recommended. Installation is three steps. Download the version you want from the releases page, extract the contents of the downloaded zip to a folder of your choice, and if you are upgrading from a previous version it is highly recommended to delete the old files first, since there are no persistent configuration files or anything like that. Then run RadeonSoftwareSlimmer.exe. The absence of persistent state is worth noting: it means the tool holds nothing between runs, so it also cannot remember what you chose last time.

The disclaimer is the part to read first

The project puts a disclaimer above the getting started section, and it is not boilerplate. This software is not owned, supported or endorsed by Advanced Micro Devices, and improper use could cause system instability, so use at your own risk. Two things follow from that. The first is that when something goes wrong after you have removed components from the driver package, you are outside vendor support, which is the trade the tool exists to offer. The second is that the utility is doing surgery on the driver stack of the machine you use for work or games, and a mistake there can cost more than the disk space and background processes you were trying to reclaim. The sensible habit, and one the tool's design supports, is to know what you removed before you remove it, since the choices are not necessarily reversible by the tool itself.

How the project is built

The repository is a C# project on Windows, with a .NET 10.0 x64 desktop runtime among the accepted runtimes and a solution file at the top level. The structure follows current .NET conventions, with a Directory.Build.props and a Directory.Packages.props for centralising build settings and package versions, a src/ directory for the code, a test/ directory for the tests, a build/ directory, and a nuget.config. There are local CI scripts for both platforms the project supports, local-ci.sh and local-ci.ps1, alongside the GitHub Actions workflows for continuous integration and for releases, whose badges sit at the top of the project page. A .editorconfig and .vscode/ directory round out the tooling. The release history shows steady versioning, with 1.13.0 on 2026-10-14, 1.12.0 on 2025-03-06 and 1.11.0 on 2024-01-01, and the last push to the repository was on 2026-10-14.

Third party libraries do the heavy lifting

The project credits the libraries it uses, and the list explains most of what the tool actually does. .NET and the related Microsoft libraries are the foundation. 7-Zip is used for decompressing the Radeon Software installer files, which is the step that lets the tool look inside the vendor package rather than just hiding shortcuts. MahApps supplies the UI controls, styles and themes, which is why the utility has a conventional Windows interface rather than a bare form. The Task Scheduler Managed Wrapper is used to read and modify system scheduled tasks, which is how background jobs get turned on or off. System.IO.Abstractions provides abstractions for System.IO for testability, and Shields.io provides the badges on the readme. The application icon comes from a Radeon profile icon, credited separately. Nothing in that list is exotic, and each entry maps to a visible behaviour of the tool.

Where it is the wrong tool

Three situations call for a different approach. The first is a user who wants the full feature set and only objects to something minor, because a tool that works by removing whole components is a blunt instrument compared with the per-feature toggles the vendor's own control panel offers. The second is a machine where the Radeon Software package was installed by an IT department, since modifying a managed driver stack is likely to be reverted or to conflict with the department's own configuration. The third is any AMD card user who has no problem with the default install, in which case running a tool that removes parts of a driver to save some background memory and disk space is a poor trade against the risk of a broken display driver. The project is also Windows only, since it depends on scheduled tasks, the .NET desktop runtime and the structure of the Adrenalin installer, and it targets AMD GPUs only.

Editorial conclusion

Radeon Software Slimmer fits an AMD GPU owner on Windows who finds the Radeon Software package heavier than they want and would rather choose what is installed and what runs in the background, since the utility exists precisely because Adrenalin 2020 Edition added many features that not every user wants. It does not fit a user who wants the software to be endorsed by the vendor, because the project states in capitals that it is not owned, supported or endorsed by AMD, and it does not fit someone who cannot give an installer administrator rights. Before you run it, read the wiki documentation, take a copy of whatever the utility removes so you can put it back, and check that your Windows build has one of the listed runtimes, since the project accepts .NET Framework 4.8, .NET Framework 4.8.1 or the .NET Desktop Runtime 10.0 x64.

Frequently asked questions

Official sources

1. GSDragoon/RadeonSoftwareSlimmer on GitHub
2. Issues
3. License: GPL-3.0
4. README
5. Releases