While Windows 10 still has a 70% market share, all new PCs now ship with Windows 11, and any options to buy a Windows 10 PC instead have largely vanished. If your PC has the right hardware, upgrading to Windows 11 from Windows 10 is free. Easily find the apps you want and the shows you watch in the new Microsoft Store. John Loeppky is a British-Canadian disabled freelance writer based in Regina, Saskatchewan. His work has appeared for the CBC, FiveThirtyEight, Defector, and a multitude of others.

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• If one of these programs has started to charge, and we haven’t removed it yet, please let us know.
• When Windows was initially released (e.g., Windows 3.11), it relied heavily on .ini files to store Windows and Windows programs configurations and settings.
• Many of the steps above will work for fixing any corrupted file.

The amount of new goodies in Windows 10 is almost mind-boggling. Even after all these tips, you’re still only scratching the surface of the operating system’s depths. Windows Sonic for Headphones offers a virtual surround sound format that can make the audio coming from your headset feel more lush and atmospheric. The effectiveness of the feature varies depending on your gear and how sensitive you are towards audio cues. It swipes functionality from the beloved f.lux app to adjust your screen’s color temperature during after-dark computing sessions. You can delay quality updates a week at a time for up to 35 days.

Windows 10 KB5026361 May 2023 Update is causing issues for some users

It is important you do this, because if anything goes wrong, you can always revert back to this save. Common do-it-yourself (DIY) window cleaners are either vinegar-based solutions or Dawn mixed with a bucket of warm water. Combine two parts water with one part white vinegar in an empty spray bottle.

I say “the more mobile, the better” because Windows 10 is a mobile operating system. I know this upsets people who think their PCs should work just like they did in a previous century, but the whole technology world is changing and Windows is changing along with it. Microsoft’s boss Satya Nadella keeps repeating his “cloud first, mobile first” mantra, and Windows will continue to become increasingly mobile and cloud-aware. When you open File Explorer in Windows 10, it defaults to a new Quick Access view that shows your most frequently accessed folders and recently viewed files. I love it, personally, but if you’d rather File Explorer defaulted to the “This PC” view found in Windows 8, here’s how. Microsoft is building a graphical interface for Linux apps into WSL2, but the feature works best as a command line-style interface for now.

The Windows registry is one of the most critical parts of your computer. It tells your computer how to perform many of the processes you need it to do — like turn on! Keep reading to learn how the Windows registry works, how to back it up, and how an all-in-one PC cleaner can help keep your registry running optimally. We don’t recommend manually clearing the registry because even minor mistakes might have undesirable results. We recommend tools like Auslogics Registry Cleaner to optimize and maintain your PC’s registry. The Windows Registry is an integral part of your computer that saves numerous system configurations, preferences, and settings.

In other words, the registry or Windows Registry contains information, settings, options, and other values for programs and hardware installed on all versions of Microsoft Windows operating systems. For example, when a program is installed, a new subkey containing settings such as a program’s location, its version, and how to start the program, are all added to the Windows Registry. The registry is physically stored in several files, which are generally obfuscated from the user-mode APIs used to manipulate the data inside the registry. Depending upon the version of Windows, there will be different files and different locations for these files, but they are all on the local machine. The location for system registry files in Windows NT is %SystemRoot%\System32\Config; the user-specific HKEY_CURRENT_USER user registry hive is stored in Ntuser.dat inside the user profile. There is one of these per user; if a user has a roaming profile, then this file will be copied to and from a server at logout and login respectively.

If you created a backup of your Windows Registry manually using the Import option inside the Registry Editor, you’d end up with a .reg file. It’s this file that you need to restore on your device to reinstate its Windows Registry. You can access the Windows registry by typing regedit in the Windows taskbar. Using a restore point will undo any changes to app, drivers, and system updates since that point in time.

To browse this location, you first start by opening the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE key (folder). In this key, you see the SOFTWARE folder, then Microsoft, Windows, CurrentVersion, and finally the Run folder. Fixing Windows errors, tweaking Windows features, or completely removing a program can sometimes require you to edit the Windows registry. This page provides help with opening and viewing the Windows registry, editing, and deleting registry values. We hope you were able able to find a solution that worked and now know how to clean the registry and create backups in case things go wrong in the future. The Autoruns/VirusTotal.com linkage will help you, but I don’t know of an easy way to automate or script the process.