Best Windows 10 Registry Hacks to Optimize Your PC

Windows 10 comes with a lot of features and a beautiful interface. Not all the features and settings of the operating system are disclosed, also these features can’t be approached normally. Some of the changes might be meaningless and many of them could prove to be useful.

To use these features and settings, you need to access the Windows Registry Editor.

Registry Editor is mostly used to make changes in settings, cleaning registry junk and fixing system errors. Besides this, you can also use it to access features and settings.

In this post, we have listed some of the Windows 10 registry hacks to access features and settings on Windows 10.

Before getting started, you should take a  backup of your registry files. To take a backup of registry files, you need to launch the registry editor and follow these steps:

1. Press Windows and R to open the Run window. Type Regedit and press enter.
2. Once Registry Editor launches, go to File->Export
   
   Note: If you want to take a backup of an individual key, you need to locate the key and right-click on it. From the context menu, select Export.
   
3. You will get an option to choose the location to save the .reg file.

You can also create a system restore point to take a backup of settings of entire computer. To do that, go to the Start button and type restore in the search box to get Create a restore point, click on it. Now choose a drive and click Configure. Also Turn on system protection, set it to Max Usage space and select OK.

Dark Theme

Using Dark Theme could decrease stress on your eyes. Windows 10 provides you with several methods to turn off the light theme or enable Dark theme. Follow these steps to get enable Dark Theme:

1. Press Windows and R to open the Run window. Type Regedit and press enter.
2. Go to this path: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE-> Software -> Microsoft -> Windows -> CurrentVersion -> Themes. Right click on Themes key, choose New->Key. Name the key Personalize.
   
3. Right click on Personalize key, choose New-> DWORD(32-bit), which generate a new value under the key. Name the new DWORD AppsUseLightTheme and set its value 0.
   
4. Now go to this path: HKEY_CURRENT_USER-> Software -> Microsoft -> Windows, then locate CurrentVersion -> Themes and then Personalize. Personalize folder exists for this path. In case, you can’t locate the file, create it by using the same steps. Now Under Personalize create a DWORD(32-bit) and name it AppsUseLightTheme. Set its value to 0.
   
5. Restart your computer to take the changes effect.

Enhance Security of Virtual Memory

When your PC runs out of physical RAM, then it utilizes a part of your hard disk as virtual memory.in pagefile form. The pagefile stays on the hard disk even after turning off the system, which gives the opportunity to tamper with.

You can get that pagefile deleted when your computer is turned off, but it will increase the time taken to turn off your Windows computer by a few minutes. The delay depends on the size of the pagefile, which can be anywhere between 2 GB to 16 GB.

Follow these steps to ensure the security of Virtual memory:

1. Launch Registry Editor. (Press Windows and R to open the Run window. Type Regedit and press enter)
2. Go to this path: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE-> SYSTEM-> CurrentControlSet-> Control-> Session Manager-> Memory Management
   
   
3. Select Memory Management and on the Right-hand side of the panel, locate ClearPageFileAtShutDown &right click on it. From the context menu, choose Modify and set the value to 1.
   
4. Restart your computer and Windows will delete the pagefile whenever you turn off your computer.

Action Center

Action Center is one of the best ways to check the notifications, quick access to Wifi, Bluetooth and other alerts on the computer. It proves to be useful to many but some of us might find it unnecessary as well. If you are the ones who don’t like Action Center, then follow these steps to disable it.

1. Go to this path: HKEY_CURRENT_USER-> SOFTWARE-> Policies-> Microsoft-> Windows-> Explorer
   
   Note: If you can’t find Policies key, then you have to create it manually. Also, you need to create Microsoft, followed by Windows and Explorer.
2. Right click on Explorer and choose New->Dword (32bit) from the context menu. Name the new Dword as DisableNotificationCenter. Now right click on the key and from the menu, select Modify. Now set the value of it as 1.
3. Restart your computer and Action Center will be disabled for good.

This change will disable all the alerts and notifications in general, so think it through before going for it.

Balloon Notifications

If you want the notifications to be shown as bubbles in Windows 10, then that can be done. It is not that toast notifications don’t work well, but not all of the notifications come up as toasts. Follow these steps to change notifications from toast to balloon:

1. Go to this path: HKEY_CURRENT_USER-> SOFTWARE-> Policies-> Microsoft-> Windows-> Explorer
   
2. Right-click on Explorer and choose New->Dword (32bit) from the context menu. Name the new Dword as EnableLegacyBalloonNotifications. Now right click on the key and from the menu, select Modify. Now set the value of it as 1.
   
3. Restart your computer to let the changes take effect.

Note: If you can’t find Policies key, then you have to create it manually. Also, you need to create Microsoft, followed by Windows and Explorer.

Hide folders

If you don’t like the default folders such Desktop, Music, Documents, Pictures Downloads, and Videos and don’t have much of a use for it. Disabling them could make it all easy. Follow these steps to disable the default folders:

1. Go to this path: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE-> SOFTWARE-> Microsoft-> Windows-> CurrentVersion-> Explorer-> FolderDescriptions-> <FOLDER-GUID>-> PropertyBag.

2. To disable all of these folders, you need to locate six different registry keys, each one of them denotes the six folders present in This PC. Replace the  <FOLDER-GUID>  with the following:

• Downloads: {7d83ee9b-2244-4e70-b1f5-5393042af1e4}
• Desktop: {B4BFCC3A-DB2C-424C-B029-7FE99A87C641}
• Music: {a0c69a99-21c8-4671-8703-7934162fcf1d}
• Videos: {35286a68-3c57-41a1-bbb1-0eae73d76c95}
• Documents: {f42ee2d3-909f-4907-8871-4c22fc0bf756}
• Pictures: {0ddd015d-b06c-45d5-8c4c-f59713854639}

3. Under eah of these PropertyBag key, you will find a string value ThisPCPolicy

Note: You need to create this value for Desktop manually

4. If ThisPCPolicy is set to Show, then folder is visible. Change it to Hide to make the folder invisible.

If you have registry errors or invalid registry entries on your computer, you can use registry cleaner and optimizer, it will not only improve your PC’s performance by getting rid of invalid registry entries but also optimize your Windows registry. Are you thinking which registry cleaner to choose? Well, you can use Advanced PC Cleanup by Systweak which can help you fix the invalid registry entries and boost the system performance.

Let’s take a look at the features of Advanced PC Cleanup:

• Advanced PC Cleanup cleans invalid Windows registry, resulting in fewer crashes and more stable and reliable PC.
• It can reduce the number of unwanted messages that come up on screen. These messages pop up due to outdated information running in Windows registry of hardware or software running on your PC.
• It always takes backup of your old registry, before optimizing registry which makes it a safe and trustworthy software.

So, these are changes that can be made to access some Windows 10 features. Though tweaking Registry editor can be a little risky as it could damage keys and files, it is effective too. Moreover, as long as you have taken a backup of your registry keys, don’t shy away to tweak and make changes to get a better Windows 10 experience. Download Advanced PC Cleanup from here.

Do you know any other Registry editor hacks? If yes, then please share with us in the comments below.

Also Read: Registry Cleaner For Windows 10