The Windows registry is a very important – and very groggy – part of your system. It achieves deep customization but one wrong move can hurt your software badly. For that reason, it’s important to know what you’re doing before you change anything.
Always Backup Your Registry
To do any tweaks it’s important to create a backup of the registry first. To do so we can open the Registry Editor using the regedit command in the search bar. Next, find your way inside and click File > Export to make a backup copy of it. You’re ready to make safe changes now.
1. Customize Your Context Menu
Do you want to add quick access programs to your right click menu? Navigate to this path:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT/Directory/Background/Shell
When creating, new keys are created for the apps you want to add. Accessing your favourite tools is even faster!
2. Kill your Windows Lock Screen
If you’re tired of entering a password every time, you can disable lock screen. Just change the NoLockscreen value to 1 in this path:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SOFTWARE/Policies/Microsoft/Windows
On the one hand, it’s convenient but dangerous; it reduces security.
3. Speed Up Menu Animations
Lower the delay leaving menu open, make your system feel snappier. Find MenuShowDelay in this location:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Control Panel/Desktop
And change the value to a smaller number, indicating milliseconds, for quicker transitions.
4. Enable Dark Mode System-Wide
Prefer a darker theme? AppsUseLightTheme set to 0 enables dark mode. This tweak is found here:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER/SOFTWARE/Microsof/Windows/CurrentVersion/Themes/Personalize
It randomly applies dark mode to the system at once.
5. Clear Virtual Memory at Shutdown
If you have as much RAM as disk, enable clearing virtual memory at shutdown to save disk space. Change ClearPageFileAtShutdown to 1 under this path:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM/CurrentControlSet/Control/Session Manager/Memory ManagementHandle editing the registry very carefully! The changes you made in the previous tutorial will make Windows more efficient, but always have a back up in case anything goes wrong!