Top 10 Useful Windows 10 Registry Hacks You Should Know

To help you improve your Windows 10 experience, here are many Windows 10 registry hacks worth trying. Before you start, one thing you should keep in mind is that you need to be careful to use Registry Editor because messing with it could corrupt your Windows.

Thus, it’s recommended you to follow the instructions precisely and make clear what you are doing. In addition, you had better perform a backup of Windows to restore your system in case it crashed.


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BACKUP YOUR SYSTEM FIRST, FOLLOW TIP #0 BELOW
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Tip#0 - Back up Your System first
For a reliable and professional backup software — use MiniTool ShadowMaker. It is pretty safe and easy to back up your system. Besides, this tool allows you to back up files and folders, disks and partitions.

In addition, it supports restoring your system image to the original device and other computers. What’s more, MiniTool ShadowMaker enables you to sync files and folders 1 to other locations.

You can download MiniTool ShadowMaker Trial from the following button or choose to purchase an advanced edition.

Now, let’s see how to back up your Windows system.

Step 1: Decide a Backup Mode
  1. Launch MiniTool ShadowMaker and click Keep Trial .
  2. Then click Connect in This Computer to enter the main interface.



Step 2: Choose Backup Source

  1. Go to the Backup page.
  2. This software selects the system partition and system reserved partition by default.


Step 3: Choose a Destination Path to Store Your System
Then choose a destination path to store your system and click OK .



Step 4: Start to Back up

  1. Go back to the following interface.
  2. You have two options: click Back up Now to start the backup process immediately or click Back up Later to delay the backup process.




Here are all the steps of using MiniTool ShadowMaker to back up your system.

After you have backed up the system, you can proceed to follow the top 10 Windows 10 registry tweaks to improve the performance of your system. First, you should open the Registry Editor application. Here are two methods for you.

So, begin by pressing Windows + R to open the Run dialogue box. Then type regedit and click OK to open it.

Now you're ready for the 10 tips 👌 Let's go



Tip#1 - Remove the OneDrive Button from the File Explorer
OneDrive is Microsoft’s cloud service that can be used to sync/upload/store files. If you are not a regular user of the OneDrive service in Windows, there is no need to remain it and you can delete it. To delete it from the File Explorer application using Registry Editor, follow instructions below:

Step 1: Navigate to the following path:
Code:
Computer\HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID{018D5C66–4533–4307–9B53–224DE2ED1FE6}
Then the OneDrive option will be deleted from the File Explorer application. If you want it back, you should follow the steps above again and change Value data to 1 .



Tip#2 - Change Windows Apps and Settings to Dark Mode
Changing Windows apps and settings to dark mode is one of the Windows 10 registry tweaks. It’s better for your eyes to read white writing on a dark background rather than a light background. The steps are as follows:

Step 1: Navigate to the following path and press the Enter key to open it.
Code:
Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Themes\Personalize


Step 2: Right-click an empty space in the right-side panel. Then select New > DWORD (32-bit) value .

Restart your computer. Open the Settings application and you will see that the background is changed to the dark mode.



Tip#3 - Automatically Delete Pagefile.sys at Shutdown
Pagefile.sys acts as virtual RAM, and Windows uses it as RAM to store unused programs to reduce the pressure on actual RAM. You should not disable it, but you can delete it to save space and avoid any vulnerabilities.

The size of the Pagefile.sys is almost close to the actual RAM, so depending on your RAM, it can take up a lot of space. You can delete Pagefile.sys at shutdown setting, which saves space but the shutdown time will become longer. Here is how to do that:

Step 1: Navigate to the following path in Registry Editor:
Code:
Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management


Step 2: Set its Value data to 1 and click OK . Then restart your PC.

Every time you shut down your PC, the pagefile will be deleted. You don’t need to worry about it because the pagefile will be created again when needed.



Tip#4 - Open Last Active Window in Taskbar
In addition to the Windows 10 registry hacks above, there is another hack — open the last active window from on your taskbar. If you accidentally close the tabsdows of an application, it can help you make them back. You just need to do a simple click. To do this:

Step 1: Copy and paste this path in Registry Editor and press the Enter key.

Code:
Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced
Step 2: Right-click the empty space and select New > DWORD(32-bit) .





Tip#5 - Disable Shake to Minimize
The Aero Shake feature allows you to minimize the other window by shaking nearby it. You may not have realized you even had this feature, but now that you know, you might not want it. To remove it, you should follow the steps below:

Step 1: Navigate to the following path and remove it:
Code:
Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced




Tip#6 - Remove Windows 10 Action Center sidebar
Windows 10 Action Center sidebar provides handy quick-access buttons and notifications. However, if you don’t need it and are not comfortable with the sidebar, you can simply disable it. Thus, one of the Windows 10 registry hacks is to remove the Windows 10 Action Center sidebar:

Step 1: Copy and paste this path in Windows 10 registry editor. Then press the Enter key.

Code:
Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\ImmersiveShell
Step 2: Right-click an empty space in the right-side pane, select New > DWORD (32-bit) , then name it UseActionCenterExperience . Then change its Value data to 0 and click OK .



After, restart the PC, and you will see that the Action Center sidebar will be gone, and the notification panel will be much cleaner and smaller in size.



Tip#7 - Add apps to context menu
You have full control of the context menu and you can customize it. The seventh Windows 10 hack is adding apps to the context menu. Here is how to do that:

Step 1: Copy and paste this path:

Code:
Computer\HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\Background\shell
Step 2: Then right-click the Default file to choose the Modify option. Type Notepad.exe in the Value field and click OK .

Now, right-click on the desktop and you can see the Notepad option right there.



Tip#8 - Change the Registered Owner
You can use the Winver command to check the registered owner of the Windows.

To see the name of the person to whom your copy of Windows is licensed, click on Start and type this:
Code:
winver
You should see a winver.exe in the results. Press ENTER (or click on it) and a window will appear with information about the Windows build you have in your PC, as well as the person who holds the license to use Windows in this PC.



To change the user, follow these steps:

Step 1: Search for regedit in the start menu search and open the Registry editor.

Step 2: Navigate to:
Code:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion key
Step 3:
Locate the RegisteredOwner String value and double-click on it. Change the value to whatever you want the About Windows box to show.

To confirm that it's working, close the registry editor and open the About Windows box again using the winver command mentioned above. This time, you will see the new value that you entered in the RegisteredOwner key.



Tip#9 - Confirm File Delete Dialog
If you always want Windows to ask you to confirm deleting the file, here is a dialogue hack for you. This confirmation dialog actually helps securely delete the file. The steps are as follows:

Step 1: Navigate or copy-paste this path:

Code:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies


Then it will prompt up this dialog box for confirmation whenever you try to delete any file from the Windows.



Tip#10 - Border Width
Here's the last of the Windows 10 ten registry hacks. You can increase the Windows tabs’ current border width. Windows provides a default amount of tiny border around the tabs or Explorer windows. Here is how to change it.

Step 1: Go to the following path:

Code:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\WindowMetrics
Step 2: Find the key file named BorderWidth.




And there you have it.

This post showed you the top ten Windows 10 registry tweaks for you. All of them can improve the performance of your system and give you a better experience when you use the PC.

Final Words
To sum up, you can use the Windows 10 registry tweaks to improve the performance of your system. Before you do, you should use MiniTool ShadowMaker to back up your system (Tip#0 above), so even if you screw up something, you can revert back to the original.