If I want, for some reason to revert those registry tweaks, should I have to revert every tweak separately?
For example:
; Start > Windows Security > Virus & threat protection > Manage settings > Real-time protection > Disabled
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows Defender\Real-Time Protection]
"DisableRealtimeMonitoring"=dword:00000001
to something like this:
; Start > Windows Security > Virus & threat protection > Manage settings > Real-time protection > Enabled
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows Defender\Real-Time Protection]
"DisableRealtimeMonitoring"=dword:00000000 ??
If you already installed registry tweaks and want to undo some of them, you can delete the keys from the registry or modify the relevant values into your preferences. If you are wanting to make a new image to install, simply delete any tweaks you do not want from within my uploaded registry files or modify the relevant file values into your preferences. There may be exceptions, but they tend to be niche or complex topics.
The next question I will be asked is how to find tweak values, and those answers are in my files. I've commented on every item, making it easy to figure out if it would be a dword of 0, 1, or something else, by looking at the intuitive context. For those unfamiliar with the registry, they can learn by Googling the comments and tweak names. If there is still confusion about a tweak after researching and testing it, ask here and I will help.
Yesterday I used the guide on a 22H2 source updated to October 2025. I didn't have the patience to look through every tweak in the .reg files so my attitude was that I'd just install it as is and then poke around and see if I had any issues.
I've only found 1 - the ability to change the Lock Screen is grayed out so I had to edit the registry to be able to get that back. Other than that, nothing. My Task Manager numbers aren't quite as good as those in the screenshots, but they're close and a lot better than before.
Playing around with the guide for the past several days motivated me to dig into the registry and find the keys for my own personalization tweaks so I could include them in a .reg file and have them integrated from the get-go and not have to make them ever again. I found and successfully integrated the settings for my mouse, keyboard, screen saver, putting the Taskbar at the top of the screen (been there since Win95), unlocking the Lock Screen, and a few others.
I have 2 very minor issues with settings in the stock .reg files though. I want to change the desktop color to a dark blue. I found the entry:
; Start > Settings > Personalization > Background > Choose your background color > Black
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Colors]
"Background"="0 0 0"
I changed "0 0 0" to "10 50 120" but ended up with a gray desktop. I didn't give it any thought and used RGB values. I can't think of the names of the other color models out there, but should I have used numbers from one of those instead? I'd like to solve this if possible.
The other minor annoyance is that I don't want the search box nor the icon on the Taskbar. The entry:
The choices for the last digit are 0, 1, or 2, where 0 = hidden, 1 = icon, and 2 = the search box. I'm using 0 but the search box is there when it boots to the desktop the first time. I know it's a quick fix with the mouse, but still. Just don't understand why the setting isn't sticking.
This has been on my agenda to revisit, because I may have made an oversight with that tweak. I had experimented with the values on a live desktop, but I think I forgot to try a color other than black on a clean install, so I didn't realize the other colors may be overwritten to black again. One other person presented this issue to me, but they were uncooperative and I was busy so I shelved the issue.
The background color may not have a solution that works by integrating it directly into the image, meaning that key may be extraneous right now. I'm currently unsure what feature of Windows may be overwriting the background color, but in the meantime there's a decent chance that by moving the background tweak into the post-setup (user) section of NTLite it will serve as a good workaround until I figure it out.
For knowledge sake, many people find that the theme tweaks often don't work when used in other images outside of this guide. That's because Windows overwrites many theme settings after a clean install, when the user is being created and the desktop is about to be visible. During that specific time the Aero theme is silently added in the background (it's not preinstalled) and that's when the overwrites happen.
This optimized image guide includes a tweak that disables the Aero theme installation, thus allowing many theme tweaks to be integrated directly and be active out of the box on a clean install, rather than needing to be added in post-setup. In other words, if background color is still being overwritten with my guide then it's not due to the Aero theme, so there's something else interfering that's yet to be discovered.
This isn't one that should be causing issues, since it's just a basic registry key and I don't think it's tied into other features. It could be that the newer Windows build you're using changed how it works. The first thing I'd do is use the mouse to right-click the taskbar and make sure the searchbox is enabled. Then download Nirsoft's RegChangesViewer tool and take a snapshot. Now use the mouse to disable the search box and take another snapshot with that tool. Compare the registry keys that changed. Is SearchboxTaskbarMode the only key, or has Windows added a new companion key that toggles alongside it or something else of that nature?
If there's too much "noise" in the registry comparison with many keys shown, toggle the searchbox back the other way and do the snapshot steps again--sometimes Windows does a burst of background activity that clogs up the results with irrelevant data. If this test doesn't give us anything useful to work with, try Garlin's idea. Another thing to consider is this taskbar tweak may require the use of the 2 XML files in my guide, so make sure those were installed to the correct path and they actually cleared out the start menu and taskbar of clutter. Lastly, check the hash of your base ISO for corruption issues, or try an official ISO from Microsoft's website using the browser agent trick or the Rufus tool.
I'd do more on my side to help, but my main computer's motherboard actually just died this week (I'm typing this on a Chromebook) and it caused a lot of corruption to my drives and files in the process, so I'm dealing with all that right now. Let me know if you figure it out, and in the meantime I'll keep these things on my to-do list to verify in the next guide update whenever the universe will let me do that.
Thanks for the update. When you say to remove UCPD, are you saying I should remove all instances of it from the mount directory of a loaded image? I see 3 instances of UCPD.sys, and 3 more of UCPDMgr.exe.
Do you think UCPD could also be blocking attempts to make changes to folder view settings? I set them the way I wanted them and exported that registry key ([HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced]) and then saved it in a "Reg_7" file I created to keep all my changes in one place, but after I installed that ISO 4 of the settings didn't stick. I used a file compare utility to compare the registry key I integrated into the image with the same key on the fresh install. Would the folder view settings be another candidate for post-setup? If so, should I put them in before or after log-on? Thanks.
For licensed NTLite users, you should remove the User Choice Protection component.
Free users should:
1. Search for UCPD Velocity on the Scheduled Tasks page's toolbar, and Remove it.
2. Search for UCPD on the Extra Services page's toolbar, and Disable it.
Don't remove system files from a mounted image by hand, since you will get a future "SFC /scannow" error because the component files are still listed in the corresponding WinSxS manifest (which hasn't been removed). That's why you need to have NTLite safely remove the component, or just disable the service.
I'm not complaining, but after removing UCPD and moving some of my reg tweaks to post-install, nothing changed. I'll just be content with having the image 99% how I like it. I've already tried running a .reg file with my tweaks and then signing out and back on and it takes care of everything. It's taking too much time to track down these last few outliers and I'm tired of reinstalling.
One nice thing that came out of all this is that I learned how to apply an image using DISM. It only takes just over 5-1/2 minutes even on this basic All-in-One with a mechanical hard drive. It feels like the process is 75% faster.
UCPD is one problem. Another is some HKCU reg edits are overwritten (or ignored) during new user provisioning. The normal model is a new user profile inherits Default User's profile as the starting point. But in later W10 and W11 releases, some HKCU keys are not transferred over.
You can see this by adding reg keys to Default User's profile (hive), and created a new local user on a live Windows. Some keys make it, other don't. But there isn't any explanation why some settings are blocked. You just have to experiment until you get to a working solution .
UCPD is one problem. Another is some HKCU reg edits are overwritten (or ignored) during new user provisioning. The normal model is a new user profile inherits Default User's profile as the starting point. But in later W10 and W11 releases, some HKCU keys are not transferred over.
You can see this by adding reg keys to Default User's profile (hive), and created a new local user on a live Windows. Some keys make it, other don't. But there isn't any explanation why some settings are blocked. You just have to experiment until you get to a working solution .
garlin what i noticed over the years when you try to help people out with windows annoyances is just how much , and i mean really alot, began to hate windows as an OS in general, so i swung my ass back to a good old customizable Linux distro. f**k this sh*t
garlin what i noticed over the years when you try to help people out with windows annoyances is just how much , and i mean really alot, began to hate windows as an OS in general, so i swung my ass back to a good old customizable Linux distro. f**k this sh*t
I'm getting there too. I don't know how much longer I can keep fighting Microsoft over the control of my computers. But the lack, or quality, of certain desktop apps for Linux is keeping me on Windows for the foreseeable future. I really like KDE Plasma though, but I need my apps and some of my hardware doesn't work well under Linux. My current 24H2 build should keep me going for at least a year. I'll see what's next. I'll mess with 25H2 in few months. Though I can't imagine what would need to happen for Microsoft to change their ignorant and abusive ways. Microsoft is too far gone at this point.
Hi, hello. I want to keep my laptop's varying power profiles which execute ~~ as I unplug the power cable. I.e balanced power saver etc. I'm under the impression it's full schnell all the time, which I think harms the battery.
I avoided adding registry nr 1 for this reason however I still get no power plans.
So question is .. well is there a workaround, because the other tweaks I do want, but I want to keep power modes and I'll also be keeping defender/firewall. So I removed nr.2 reg as well. Well, rather just firewall but I can live with defender so we don't make this too long if it gets too long to explain.
Question is strictly for power modes, how can I restore them. ty
L.E. this is for a pro 22h2 if it makes a difference.
The issue of hidden power plans in Control Panel isn't from my guide. It's intentional by Microsoft--they are hiding the plans and choose the balanced scheme by default. On mobile devices, later W10 builds, and on W11, they are further confusing things by converting the presentation of plans into slider bars and overlays that people are unfamiliar with. The original plans are still there, buried under bloat and obfuscation.
My guide does not add/delete/hide any power plans. Instead, it sets the high performance power plan as active, which also has the benefit of making that plan visible in the Control Panel, allowing you to swap between High performance and Balanced in the interface. My tweaks also enhance the high performance plan for more speed, surpassing Microsoft's "Ultimate" power overlay as well as Bitsum's custom plan.
I haven't actually sat down yet with my laptop to do this myself, but a quick Google search reveals some methods that may solve this Microsoft issue. The first is to try a command prompt of "powercfg -restoredefaultschemes" without quotes, to see if the plans become visible again. Another that was popular at one time was the "CsEnabled" registry tweak, but it's been rumored to not work anymore on this forum. Setting a power plan as the active scheme through powercfg also unhides them.
Lastly, modern standby may need to be disabled in the BIOS before any option can permanently unhide a power plan. I like the idea of solving this question though, so I'll try to add a tweak that unhides all plans in a future update of my guide.
There's no harm to the battery in my guides. Harm would come in 2 ways. It can be harm in the form of draining the battery charge faster, which isn't dangerous it's just annoying. The other harm could be physical damage to the battery or hardware, which shouldn't happen except in cases of egregiously bad tweaking and bugs, which you won't find in my guides (I value a bug-free and stable environment above speed).
I'm willing to bet if you let a laptop idle from 100% charge to battery shutdown, it will run cooler and longer on my custom image with the high performance plan active, because the background resource usage has been reduced to make up for the increased speed. I actually use this image on an HP Stream 11 laptop in addition to my other computers and have yet to encounter an issue. I will definitely add laptop benchmarks to the screenshots in a future update of the guide though, for battery life and anything else people would like to see.
That's totally okay. I purposely built my guide so that each file was organized and had comments on everything for this reason. If a user sees a tweak they don't want on their machine, the idea is for them to delete the tweak from the registry file and then save it. Use the modified files to create a new image, and Windows will use whatever their default setting is for each of the tweaks that was deleted from the registry files.
The issue of hidden power plans in Control Panel isn't from my guide. It's intentional by Microsoft--they are hiding the plans and choose the balanced scheme by default
Ok, I'm not sure if it's the powercfg cmd line you gave me or a firmware virus I have..yeah, anyway, but probably the cmd line - has removed your power plan leaving me only with balanced. So now I understand what your words mean, cuz I was reading the text and it made no sense.
I had NO IDEEA, that there's still... basically the old option for plans and on top of that the slider, which by the way is why I made the post, I wanted the slider back.
So let me get this straight, the slider you usually get from power saving to performance, is all just an act on top of a default balanced power plan?
Anyway, I got the slider back, but I also lost your power plan. I will reinstall, and this time check if I can just switch between plans in power options from classic control panel and if that gives me the slider back for when I need it.
As an aside, I think strain on the battery is harmful, we can argue where the line is crossed for harmful but constantly keeping a battery in strain.. it's not what they are made for, at least not office laptops although pretty sure the argument can be made even for gaming laptops.
The speed at which a battery is drained affects it. Whether that's a scientifically approved peer reviewed point of view, doesn't really matter, I think it follows a pretty natural and universal law. I'm more than welcome to accept other points of view for when it concerns said other's people tech, but for mine.. I pamper them a little XD. Even though that is kinda gay.. I will admit, mostly comes from being poor prolly XD.
Pic related, I initially only checked the new control panel battery options.
L.E. Ok yeah, reinstalled and I can just switch between power plans and balanced has the slider. Mind blown
L.E.2. Nvm, your performance plan just disappeared as per first image. Again not sure why.. might be the virus I have. Someone else can try and see if this behavior is normal. I don't think it should be but
The other powercfg option I mentioned previously about active schemes will work. Do a command prompt of, "powercfg /setactive scheme_min" without quotes and it will set the High performance plan as active, which makes it visible again. Balanced is scheme_balanced and Power saver is scheme_max. Using /? on a tool like powercfg shows additional options, which Microsoft documents online too (link).
Correct, the slider bar is just doing things like switching between power plans and adjusting individual settings silently in the background as the slider moves around. Essentially, Microsoft was trying to make it so that eventually there's only 1 power plan in the registry, and when the slider is moved to the left then Windows will make automated adjustments with each "tick" on the bar, enabling more power saving features. As the user slides towards the right on the bar then the power plan does the opposite and disables power saving features.
In other words, Microsoft's goal they're working towards is to make it easier to tweak power plans by moving a slider around until a user settles on a "sweet spot" without needing to know anything about the 150 individual settings that each power plan contains. Microsoft has done a poor job with this change so far, because it's been buggy, plus slow to rollout and evolve which is a big part of the confusion for the masses.
As an aside, I think strain on the battery is harmful, we can argue where the line is crossed for harmful but constantly keeping a battery in strain.. it's not what they are made for, at least not office laptops although pretty sure the argument can be made even for gaming laptops.
Context matters. I don't disagree with you, but when you take into consideration who this Optimized Image guide is for then my viewpoint makes more sense in this specific scenario. The people who use my guide generally fall into one of two situations, where they either have a potato for a computer and need to squeeze every bit of performance out of it possible, or they're gamers seeking the lowest latency.
Since this guide is all about performance, that's what I need to focus on, and power saving features directly go against that goal. If you want power savings, there's no need to convince me, just make the change on your end and have fun. If you plan on gaming though, switch to high performance if you want a much better experience, especially in multiplayer, then switch back to Balanced while doing office work.
Also just for knowledge sake, each power plan's 150 individual settings actually have 2 modes and it will choose a mode based on whether you're plugged in or on battery. While using battery, many settings across the board use a much lower performing value, even when on the High performance power plan. It's only while plugged in that the high speed settings of any power plan will be used.
Furthermore, most devices produced in the last 15 years have battery bypass technology, meaning when plugged in it draws power from the outlet rather than the battery, making the whole argument moot as there's no strain on the battery in that scenario. Lastly, the power plan is not the final say, it's actually the BIOS and drivers that controls most of this. Many CPU are now autonomous too, which means they can ignore parts of your power plan and do whatever they want to do in various scenarios. There's a lot to consider overall, it's rather complicated.
I will reinstall, and this time check if I can just switch between plans in power options from classic control panel...
L.E. Ok yeah, reinstalled and I can just switch between power plans and balanced has the slider. Mind blown...
L.E.2. Nvm, your performance plan just disappeared as per first image...
I'm guessing what happened here, is things were working correctly, but then you wanted to see if the Balanced plan's slider bar was still available, so when you switched to the Balanced plan and tinkered with it, you were happy to see it working right. Then, you rebooted the PC and that caused the High performance plan to become hidden again, since it was no longer the active power plan.
I may be able to fix this in a future update, by making it so that all 3 plans are always unhidden no matter what, but I don't know how right now and so I will need to spend time experimenting and testing, because Google doesn't know either. I put it on my to-do list, but it's low priority since this probably isn't going to be easy/possible, and it's purely a cosmetic Microsoft issue anyway.
I'm not really sure what your goal is. Are you wanting to keep the Balanced plan as active and only change things on the fly using the slider bar, while ignoring the High performance and Power saver plans? Or, are you wanting to be able to switch to the High performance plan while gaming and back to the Balanced plan afterwards?
Try this. On the desktop, right-click and create a new shortcut. In the first box type, "powercfg /setactive scheme_min" without quotes and click next. Then name it something like, Power-High. Now create another new shortcut and this time type, "powercfg /setactive scheme_balanced" without quotes, and name it Power-Balanced. This allows you to double-click on whichever power plan you want from the desktop, for people that want to turn on high power for gaming, and back to power saving features again for mundane work.
It should go without saying, but if you suspect a virus then eliminating that is objectively the first and only step to focus on until that's resolved, regardless of what type of tweaking or NTLite goals you are working on. These steps will eliminate any malware and corruption:
1) If you have important files or multiple internal drives, backup all that stuff first to a USB stick or external backup drive, because everything will be deleted from the computer. Also, unplug your ethernet cable from the computer if you have one attached.
2) Flash the BIOS to the latest version, or reflash it again if already updated. You must then reset the BIOS to defaults after flashing, but you can go back in and configure the settings as you want after that.
3) Download a fresh ISO directly from Microsoft's website using only Rufus or the browser agent trick (Google it). Do not use UUPDump or any other media whatsoever. Hash check the Microsoft ISO to verify it's not corrupted. Mount the ISO and then copy/paste the files into a bootable USB stick. Boot to that stick, then in Windows Setup when it asks where to install you must delete all partitions until it has just 1 option of "Unallocated space" left behind. This is will destroy all data, including files on secondary internal drives too.
4) When it asks to connect to the internet don't, choose to continue without instead. Do not add a Microsoft account either, just create a local user with the password being blank, click no to Cortana, and unselect all the privacy settings. Proceed with installing and now you should be free of any malware and corruption once you reach the desktop. You can also disk scan (chkdsk C: /f /r /x /b /offlinescanandfix) for extra assurance.
5) Take the USB stick or external drive of important documents and do various malware scans on them to see if they were infected before adding files back to your PC. Even if they're clean, don't try to use old files that you don't have to, instead download things like NTLite fresh again now that the malware or corruption is gone, to avoid reinfecting or corrupting things again.
Context matters. I don't disagree with you, but when you take into consideration who this Optimized Image guide is for then my viewpoint makes more sense in this specific scenario
Your guide is very helpful and I don't think it's only for the extreme cases, such as very low end pcs or gamers. Especially now that the.. grunt of Microsoft's forced updates is being felt ~ Pretty sure people were hoping that just 10 was a mishap in Microsoft's plan, and with 11 it became clear that this is their path going forward - and it's not just updates really, it's a mentality which I think we all see. So, I'm trying to say, on win10, people were unhappy but hopeful, with 11 there's no hope left and there's migration to other OS's or.. tweaks such as these, with Ntlite. And your guide is at the top and well documented.
Obviously that does not mean you should change your direction in any way, I felt that you got peeked by this, it is ultimately my ..resp to make it work for what I need, and I can that's.. the point, your guide works fine in being modular.
So this isn't to say this or that, just a matter of fact of what is happening.
Back to the thing at hand which you've been very helpful with although not sure within your set plan XD. , I had no idea that plans get hidden.. they weren't hidden back in 7 and I don't keep up to date with all minute details which there are.. probably too many to count, and I assumed this behavior was not changed, especially since it makes no sense, logically, although when you involve Microsoft's new ethos of control, everything is possible, so again, same result - I wouldn't know about it, because I wouldn't know what to expect.
Hellbovine said:
Try this. On the desktop, right-click and create a new shortcut. In the first box type, "powercfg /setactive scheme_min" without quotes and click next. Then name it something like, Power-High. Now create another new shortcut and this time type, "powercfg /setactive scheme_balanced" without quotes, and name it Power-Balanced. This allows you to double-click on whichever power plan you want from the desktop, for people that want to turn on high power for gaming, and back to power saving features again for mundane work.
I'll keep this short, your shortcut solution is wonderful, I just hope the cfg you made remains unchanged and not replaced by me tinkering with the slide bar around. And yes, the way I want to use it is, while plugged in, when the battery is not affected - which I was aware of btw - I want the full power scheme. While I keep it unplugged for running it around the house to browse and what not, balanced is more than sufficient.
I'm not sure, and never knew if while plugged out, you can ever get the plugged in settings, whether by third party tweaking or just through the slider, again, kinda inconsequential to me. I keep it plugged in anyway when I want to play and off when.. well when I keep it off and don't expect performance from it XD.
And to my defence, I know about tweaking the power schemes from back in the day but I never really went deep into it, I just know you could assign cores to be off or on depending on power schemes, and for me that was enough to realise just how powerful a power scheme is. But other than that.. I mean I might read an article about it if you have a link?~ when I go on balance mode around the house... Mind you I'm not begging for it, strictly if you have one readily available for some reason if not, forget about it I'll just look it up if I'm bored.
I'm writing all this text just as a preface into how one may think, not that it's in any way helpful to anything in your guide.
Hellbovine said:
I'm guessing what happened here, is things were working correctly, but then you wanted to see if the Balanced plan's slider bar was still available, so when you switched to the Balanced plan and tinkered with it, you were happy to see it working right. Then, you rebooted the PC and that caused the High performance plan to become hidden again, since it was no longer the active power plan.
Somewhere along those lines, i did tinker with the slider but I never restarted, just after some time it disappeared. Or hidden as you mention it, had no idea as I said above, they become hidden.
It should go without saying, but if you suspect a virus then eliminating that is objectively the first and only step to focus on until that's resolved
Yes, no I am aware obviously, but the state of today is very closeted, there's this faux collective idea that, if the antivirus doesn't pick it up it doesn't exist. I'm not trying to go off rails here because everyone has their beliefs, but with the state of today and state actors getting involved.. it would be silly to not even consider the possibility of threats that are yet to be discovered AND, way more prevalent than in olden days since there is incentive and means, as I said, state actors and global organizations to which all of us are subscribed, at the beck of state actors and vice-versa in a convoluted power scheme that I do not care for.
All I know is that my pc has absolutely no reason to crash rr, every time, 2 times, after win reinstall. And no reason why now my headsets have lost capability to handle two lines of communication, stereo and microphone at the same time, and stereo defaults to mono when micro is used. That suggest firmware tampering on the headset, to me, since drivers are the same on pc and I don't dare use the headsets with other uninfected.
And I know, what are the odds of something so powerful that can go accross devices and somehow be able to be compatible to infect accross devices, be, that I have it. .. Again, we're talking state actors, 0days..and I'm not talking win 0 days, I'm talking way deep 0days. I keep my horizons open.
So on point, I have already done suggested, which is I would assume basic stuff, but it didn't help, including firmware update. All that's left is for me to find an uninfected computer, download firmware for all that I think is infected in the house and pin flash them with a raspbery - for which I have no idea how that would even be done, but yeah, that's the only real safe way. Idk.. Irrelevant to the topic again x.x
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