Silent load tweaks

What this section changes

Hidden work Windows starts by itself. Each item turns a switch off or adds a limit; none lowers a Windows buffer or timeout.

Applying it

1. Open w0a
2. Go to the Regedit Tweaks page in the left menu
3. Find this section and press Apply on the entries you want

Every entry has its own button, so you are not required to apply a whole section — Apply All at the top of the page is there for when you do want all of them.

Undoing it

Two ways, both of which work:

• Backups & Restore — puts back the checkpoint written before the change was applied. It

puts back everything applied after that point, later checkpoints included — the confirmation says exactly that before it starts.

• The Fix page — searched by symptom, writes the Windows default unconditionally. It does not

read a backup, so it works even if w0a's own backup file is gone.

The undo log lives at %ProgramData%\w0a\backup.json, outside your user profile.

The risk

Everything here is a documented value Windows supports; none of it is kernel-level and none of it is irreversible. The honest sentence is still this: a setting may have no measurable benefit for you. If you apply a change and feel no difference, you are probably right — these pages are not selling you a feeling, they are telling you what was changed.

If you want to measure it, the rule from reading the benchmark applies: change one thing at a time, and read the lows rather than the average.

First, the honest sentence

Each box here turns off work Windows starts on its own: trace sessions that run from boot, learning from what you type, a download and a scan when you plug something in, and Storage Sense's clean-up. None was measured in a game — not frame times, not lows, not input delay. If that work never lands during your match, nothing you can see changes. Each box below also has a cost.

Box by box

Stop the telemetry trace sessions that start at boot — writes Start=0 (DWORD) under HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\WMI\Autologger\<session> for nine named sessions: AutoLogger-Diagtrack-Listener, Diagtrack-Listener, SQMLogger, Circular Kernel Context Logger, WiFiSession, WiFiDriverIHVSession, LwtNetLog, UBPM and RadioMgr. Windows starts them at boot from this key, not through a service, which is why turning the telemetry service off leaves them running. Missing sessions are skipped, never created; a protected one (RadioMgr on build 26200) is named and skipped. It takes effect after a restart; the Event trace sessions card on the Fix page writes Start=1 back. The cost: Circular Kernel Context Logger is the rolling trace kept for crash analysis, and Performance Monitor, WPR or another event-log based tool may fail to collect data.

Stop Windows learning from what you type — writes, for your user, the DWORDs RestrictImplicitTextCollection=1 and RestrictImplicitInkCollection=1 under HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\InputPersonalization and Enabled=0 under HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Input\TIPC. The first two decline collecting typed text and pen strokes; the third switches off the collector that uses them. In w0a's code this collection is work attached to input, not a scheduled job. No restart is asked for. The Typing suggestions card deletes all three: TIPC\Enabled does not exist on a clean install, and to the collector a missing restriction means the same as 0. The cost: the touch keyboard can stop predicting and handwriting recognition can get worse.

Stop downloading device icons and details when hardware is plugged in — writes PreventDeviceMetadataFromNetwork=1 (DWORD) under HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Device Metadata. What stops is the maker's icon-and-name package; drivers still install. w0a's reason: device installation waits on that request, so on a slow or filtered connection a USB device stalls while the fetch runs. No restart is asked for; the Device icons and names card deletes the value. The cost: a device can show as 'Unknown device' or with the wrong icon.

Stop scanning USB sticks and external drives on insertion — writes NoDriveTypeAutoRun=255 (DWORD) under HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer. Each set bit blocks one drive type, so 255 blocks them all; Windows' figure is 145, and the value only moves up. How long the scan it prevents takes on your drives has not been measured. No restart is asked for. A clean install has no such policy, so the AutoPlay card removes it rather than writing 145; while it is there, Windows' AutoPlay settings show as managed by your organisation. The cost: nothing opens when you plug in a USB stick or external drive.

Turn off Storage Sense — writes the policy AllowStorageSenseGlobal=0 (DWORD) under HKLM\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\StorageSense: Storage Sense is off and its switch in Settings is greyed out. Without the policy (Windows' default, which the Storage Sense card restores), Microsoft's Storage policy reference says it stays off until the disk runs low or you turn it on, with "during low free disk space" as its default schedule. On a disk with room and that schedule, this box changes nothing, and w0a does not read your schedule. Where it does run, Windows picks the moment, and that can fall in a match. No restart is asked for. The cost: a nearly full disk no longer frees space by itself.

How to check it yourself

reg query "HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\WMI\Autologger" /v Start /s
reg query "HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\InputPersonalization" /v RestrictImplicitTextCollection
reg query "HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\InputPersonalization" /v RestrictImplicitInkCollection
reg query "HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Input\TIPC" /v Enabled
reg query "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Device Metadata" /v PreventDeviceMetadataFromNetwork
reg query "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer" /v NoDriveTypeAutoRun
reg query "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\StorageSense" /v AllowStorageSenseGlobal

The first line lists Start for every session under the key; read the nine named above. After the boxes have run those are 0 (except a protected one), the restrictions 1, Enabled 0, PreventDeviceMetadataFromNetwork 1, NoDriveTypeAutoRun 255 and AllowStorageSenseGlobal 0. Among the last six, a value reg cannot find was never written or a Fix card removed it.

What this section does not do

The sessions are named one by one because the same key holds sessions Windows needs, and none of those is written: EventLog-* backs the event log, DefenderApiLogger and DefenderAuditLogger back antimalware, and ReadyBoot learns the boot sequence — stopping it makes startup slower.

Outside this page

The Disable Windows telemetry box on the Game Optimization page stops the telemetry service (DiagTrack), which per the code leaves these sessions running. The Turn off telemetry scheduled tasks box on the Optimizations page covers scheduled tasks such as the compatibility appraiser, and the Scheduled tasks card turns them back on (Scheduled tasks).

Each box here has its Fix article: Event trace sessions, Typing suggestions, Device icons and names, AutoPlay, Storage Sense.