Solved Compiling a truck load of registry tweaks

Skeptic Mike · Sep 10, 2024

antspants said:
My concern is; I probably have over 40 registry tweaks. Does anyone see a problem with performing that many tweaks in one nuclear swoop? I don’t believe there are any conflicts between the tweaks, they are carefully selected and categorised in my PC.

In practice, as everyone else has replied, you won't have a problem. But...

Registry tweaks come in different kinds. The most obvious distinction is between machine wide (targetted at HKLM) and user level (targetted at HKCU).
Some HKLM tweaks require special handling. If by default Administrators don't have write permissions - usually because the key is owned by Trusted Installer, then they won't install from a normal elevated regedit . These should be separated. You'll need a script or special tool to install these.
Some HKCU tweaks are targetted at the group policy registry areas ( under HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Policies and/or HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies) - these won't install for unprivileged users, and elevating to a different account will install them for that account. The easiest way to deal with these is to run an elevated regedit, find the users registry under HKU and change the permissions on these keys.
Tweaks targetted at HKCR are generally a bad idea. If you translate them to point at HKLM\Software\Classes or HKCU\Software\Classes then at least you know where they are going.

Tweaking programs such as Winaero Tweaker generally require elevation, but will perform tweaks in HKCU, so they only work for users who are members of Administrators. My normal account isn't a member of Administrators so I can't use these programs. I can usually work out a way of performing the personalisation tweaks I want without admin rights - although the explanations here and from Winaero are often helpful.

And notes about what you have done are useful, as finding the changes you've made can be hard. Or impossible.

Mike

antspants · Sep 10, 2024

I’m well aware of registry files and the workings of tweaks, I’ve been around a bit, thank you. That wasn’t the query.

Cheers

antspants · Sep 10, 2024

The question was if Windows liked being smacked in the face with a wet mullet that has a mouthful of tweaks in it, all at once

TM21 · Sep 10, 2024

Many of the tweaks and scripts that I use during an OS install, I've gathered right here in the forums, (Thank you Shawn)
and many of them are just One Liners. It's easy to put them in a list, like in Wordpad where they can be run as one file, under one name.

I especially like the one (thank you Shawn) the forces a new restore point to be created. I put that one in my STARTUP folder, so it runs on every Boot Up.

I'm glad to hear that someone else has come to the same conclusion, about grouping tweaks together for faster execution.

Cheers Mates!

TM

PM: I've discovered, that since installing the latest Windows 11, 24H2 from X-Lite, that I don't have to tweak it, hardly at all. Most of the necessary tweaking had already been done. That makes it convenient for those who are not natural Tweakers.

OAT · Sep 10, 2024

antspants said:
The question was if Windows liked being smacked in the face with a wet mullet that has a mouthful of tweaks in it, all at once

This should not be an issue as the registry is like a database anyway.
It might be useful to put them in hive sequence though, just for logic alone.

TM21 · Sep 11, 2024

Load the .reg scripts in any sequence you like, , , Windows just don't care. The Windows Registry is Random Access, like everything else in Windows.

I have several 'Performance enhancing tweaks' that I install on every new Windows Install, and they are all ganged together in one .reg file.
Then there are specialty tweaks, that I keep separate and run only when and if needed. Thank you "Shawn".
The new OS's I'm running today, come to me with so many tweaks already installed, that my installs go much faster.
Windows 11 from X-Lite, for instance, is pretty much "Plug N Play". Full install in < 10 minutes, with no stupid questions.

Cheers Mates!
TM

formerW11_hater · Feb 12, 2025

Hello All

I have recently built a new Desktop PC and installed Windows 11.
I have been spending lots of time trying to make W11 look like and do what i had set up in W10. I am getting there.
Some of the help has come via Brink & others (thank you all) developing .reg files which make it so much easier and repeatable should the need arise.

I went looking for a 'repository' of .reg files and came across this Post. It seems there are many .reg tweaks but so far i have not found a collective suite of .reg downloads.

I ask does such a collection exist that makes downloading or selecting easy, and if there is, i would appreciate direction to where it is.

Ps i called myself formerW11_hater as i was reluctant to move to W11 as i heard some horror stories about it compared to W10. In typical MS form, they omit some really useful things W10 did (why??) and make it more difficult by hiding things and sometimes requiring multiple steps to do the same thing W10 did. Hence the benefit, for example, of a .reg file to Disable_Show_more_options_context_menu.reg so i get back a one-stop-shop.

dacrone · Feb 12, 2025

Winaero tweaker is a gui that has plenty of reg edits you can apply via check boxes, or “see how this tweak is done” If you’d rather manually apply the edit. It’s probable too, so no install necessary.

Or.. you can gather all the .reg files of mods you want to make, place them all in one folder and run them all in one go via powershell.

formerW11_hater · Feb 12, 2025

Thanks dacrone

For clarification, I was looking for all the .reg files that may be on the WindowsEleven site, as posted by Brink etc.
I already have Winaero Tweaker installed and i had scanned through the selection and from memory applied some i wanted and/or thought i wanted.
I will check out Winaero Tweaker out more thoroughly.

Thanks again for you help.

XxXxX · Feb 12, 2025

Brink said:
It's all a team effort.

it maybe a team effort but it normally takes someone to take the lead to keep a team together
all i can say is thank you. which is an understatement as i have struggled with some of the aspects of Win 11.

best of luck, Steve ..

XxXxX · Feb 12, 2025

antspants said:
The question was if Windows liked being smacked in the face with a wet mullet that has a mouthful of tweaks in it, all at once

if MS had their way they would most likely undo all the users reg tweaks at every update.
(i shouldn’t have said that as MS are now likely to take it onboard and do it)

best of luck, Steve ..

antspants · Feb 12, 2025

XxXxX said:
if MS had their way they would most likely undo all the users reg tweaks at every update.
(i shouldn’t have said that as MS are now likely to take it onboard and do it)

best of luck, Steve ..

Very possibly, Steve.

krism · Feb 12, 2025

If they did that I think everyone's system would break and they would never get anything updated.

No prob to adding 400 at once - mullet/soft pillow in face it doesn't care. That doesn't guarantee that your system will be viable after, but I would bet on it, rather than against. I would just take an image and do it. But I'm like that...

Skeptic Mike · Feb 12, 2025

XxXxX said:
if MS had their way they would most likely undo all the users reg tweaks at every update.
(i shouldn’t have said that as MS are now likely to take it onboard and do it)

It will depend on the kind of reg tweak. Group policy tweaks should be unaffected. Documented tweaks such as block lists for Explorer shell extensions and SuppressionPolicy context menu blocking shouldn't be affected. Anything that you apply with user rights only is less likely to be affected as "repairing" the system won't affect those.

And since you'll have the .reg files to reapply, it's not to hard to cope.

Mike

dacrone · Feb 12, 2025

Skeptic Mike said:
It will depend on the kind of reg tweak. Group policy tweaks should be unaffected. Documented tweaks such as block lists for Explorer shell extensions and SuppressionPolicy context menu blocking shouldn't be affected. Anything that you apply with user rights only is less likely to be affected as "repairing" the system won't affect those.

And since you'll have the .reg files to reapply, it's not to hard to cope.

Mike

didnt have access to my notes before. save all of your .reg files (no large dump available that i know of). place them all in 1 folder and run the following .bat file (edit to path of folder):

Code:

<# :
  @echo off
    powershell /nologo /noprofile /command ^
        "&{[ScriptBlock]::Create((cat """%~f0""") -join [Char[]]10).Invoke(@(&{$args}%*))}"
  exit /b
#>

    $regFiles  = Get-ChildItem 'C:\PATH\TO\YOUR\FOLDER\*.reg'
        foreach ($file in $regFiles) {
          reg import $file
         }

Solved Compiling a truck load of registry tweaks

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