Improve Your Windows 11 Experience With These 8 Registry Tricks
The Windows Registry stores important information and settings for almost every Windows feature, native or third-party applications, and hardware. This is where you want to take Windows customization to the next level.
There are many ways to customize Windows 11, such as changing the default settings or using third-party apps. However, the Windows Registry is the back-end that completely controls most things in Windows.
You can use the Windows Registry to completely remove user interface elements, restore deleted features, improve Windows performance, and even install Windows 11 on unsupported PCs. In addition, many of the fantastic third-party applications that we use to customize Windows usually make changes to the registry that we could even do manually.
If you're ready to take matters into your own hands, I know the right Windows Registry Hacks to get you started.
A warning. Changing the registry incorrectly can have negative effects on your computer, including damage to Windows and loss of data. Even though the hacks listed below won't have a negative effect, you should back up your registry just to be sure. You can backup the registry manually or use a third party automatic backup/restore application.
Access to the Windows registry
Before I tell you about registry hacks, you should know how to access the registry. There are several ways to do this, but the easiest is to search for the term "registry" in the Windows search bar and the application will open. Alternatively, you can use the regedit "Run" command to open the Windows Registry.
Once it's open, you can enter the location of the registry entry you want to edit in the top search bar to access it directly. Do not worry; I'll include the exact location of each entry so you can copy/paste easily.
Disable Lock Screen Windows 11
When starting the PC, a screen appears before entering the password, which disappears when any key is pressed. It serves no other purpose than showing a nice picture and some additional information about it. Many people may find this screen an annoying extra step to access your PC. If you want to remove it for direct access to the password screen, you can do so using the registry.
Open the Windows Registry and type the following location in the search bar at the top and press the Enter key.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREPoliciesMicrosoftWindows
Here, right-click on the Windows entry and select New > Key. Name this new key "Personalization".
Now select this new Personalization entry, right-click on the empty space on the right, and select New > DWORD (32-bit) Value. Name this entry "NoLockScreen".
After that, double-click the NoLockScreen entry, change its value from 0 to 1, and click OK.
That's it, the next time you start your PC, you will immediately see the password screen.
Enable verbose status messages
Verbose status messages are messages you see when Windows starts or shuts down, such as the "Preparing desktop" message. Basically, it tells you exactly what Windows is currently doing that is causing the startup/shutdown delay. By default, these messages are very limited and do not contain all the information.
If you're seeing long shutdown or startup delays, you can enable these verbose status messages to pinpoint exactly what's causing the delay and possibly fix the issue. Here's how:
Access the location below.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionPoliciesSystem
Here, select the System entry, then right-click on the spacebar in the right pane and select New > DWORD (32-bit) Value.
Name this new entry "verbosestatus", double click on it and change its value to 1.
Now your computer will tell you exactly what processes it starts or closes when you start or shut down your computer.
Get old context menu
Windows 11 has a new small sized context menu where most of the options are hidden behind the "Show advanced options" button, which basically opens the classic context menu. Personally, I don't like the new context menu as most of the time I still have to click the "Show advanced options" button.
Why make it a 2-click process when you can just open the old context menu on the first try? Below is a registry hack to always open the old context menu on right-click instead of clicking the "Show advanced options" button.
Navigate to the following location in the registry:
HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareClassesCLSID
Right-click the CLSID entry and select New > Key.
Put this value as the name: {86ca1aa0-34aa-4e8b-a509-50c905bae2a2}
Right click again on this new entry and select New > Key. Name this new key as "InprocServer32".
Inside the InprocServer32 entry, double-click the (default) entry and, without entering any values, click OK. This step is very important and the hack will not work without opening and closing this entry.
To apply the changes, either restart your computer or press the Ctrl + Shift + Esc keys to open Task Manager and here, right-click on Windows Explorer and select Restart. After a restart, only the old context menu will open when you right-click on an empty space or application/file.
Add Applications to Context Menu
You can also add any application's shortcut (.exe) to the context menu to access the application from anywhere by simply right-clicking on an empty space and selecting the shortcut. To demonstrate, I'll add a Chrome browser shortcut to the context menu.
Open the following location in the registry:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTDirectoryBackgroundshell
Right-click the shell entry and choose New > Key. Name this new key the name of the application you want to see in the context menu. In this case, I'll call it "Google Chrome".
After that, right-click on the application name entry you created and select New > Key. Name this key as "command".
Now we need to add the exact path to the application executable in this command entry. To do this, navigate to the exact location of the application where it is installed on your PC using Windows Explorer. Right-click the application and select "Copy as path".
Go back to the registry again and double click on the (default) entry in the command key, paste the copied path as the value and click OK.
This will add the application executable to the context menu. However, if you use the default Windows 11 context menu, you will still have to click the "Show advanced options" button to access the old context menu and see the application's executable. I recommend that you use the hack mentioned above to get faster access to the old context menu in order to use this hack productively.
Speed up your shutdown time
When you turn off your computer, Windows gives running applications a little time to save their data before forcibly closing them. This ensures that unsaved application data is not lost and application functions are not damaged due to a forced shutdown in the middle of work.
However, if a faster shutdown is important to you and you have a good habit of closing all applications and saving data before shutting down, you can decrease this timer to speed up the shutdown. Here's how:
Navigate to the location below in the registry.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetControl
Now that the Control entry is selected, look for the WaitToKillServiceTimeout entry in the right pane.
Once you find it, double click on it and change its value from 5000 to 1000 or lower. The value is in milliseconds, so you basically decrease it from 5 seconds to 1 second, saving 4 seconds for your shutdown time.
Quickly switch to the last open window
If you have multiple application windows open (for example, browser windows), returning to the application will open a thumbnail bar where you can select which window you want to access. It basically makes switching between two different apps tedious as you have to double click each time.
Luckily, with a quick registry hack, you can change this behavior so that when you click on an app with multiple windows open, it instantly reopens the last open window. And if you want to select a different window, you can hover over the icon and thumbnails will be displayed to select a different window. Here's how to do it:
Open the registry and navigate to the following location.
HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionExplorerAdvanced
While the extended entry is selected, right-click on an empty space in the right pane and select New > DWORD (32-bit) Value.
Name this new entry "LastActiveClick" and then double click on it and set its value to 1.
Now either restart your computer or restart Windows Explorer as I showed in hack #3 on this list. After a reboot, clicking opens the last available application window.
Change the size of the icons on the taskbar
This is a nifty taskbar customization hack that allows you to increase/decrease the size of your taskbar icons to make them more accessible to suit your needs. Let's get straight to it:
Get to the location below.
HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionExplorerAdvanced
Select the Advanced entry, then right-click on an empty space in the right pane and select New > DWORD (32-bit) Value.
Name the new entry as "TaskbarSi", then open it and change its value to 0, 1, or 2. Here, 0, 1, and 2 mean small, medium, and large, respectively.
You will have to restart Windows Explorer or PC to see the changes.
Change the spacing between desktop icons
If you align your desktop icons to a grid so they stay clean, you'll have trouble adjusting the spacing between icons. This space is fixed by default and cannot be changed in Windows settings.
If you want to add a lot of icons to your desktop, you will have to reduce the icon size. On the other hand, if you have fewer icons and want more clarity, the best thing you can do is increase the icon size.
All this can be solved simply by increasing or decreasing the spacing between desktop icons using the below registry hack.
In the Windows registry, navigate to the following location.
HKEY_CURRENT_USERControl PanelDesktopWindowMetrics
As long as the WindowMetrics entry is selected, you will see many entries in the right pane. Here, the IconSpacing and IconVerticalSpacing entries control the space between desktop icons.
IconSpacing controls the horizontal space, while IconVerticalSpacing controls the vertical spacing between icons. Both are set to -1125 by default. You can increase and decrease this number to increase and decrease the space accordingly. For reference, I prefer to use -1200 space since I usually only have 20-30 icons on my desktop.
Final Thoughts
Aside from changing the taskbar icon size, I use all of the other hacks listed above and they really enhance my Windows 11 experience. If you run into problems with any hack or just don't like it, you can always undo you change, and the hack will be removed. For example, if you made a new entry, then you can delete it or set its value to 0 of 1 to disable it.