Question Can tweaking Windows 10 too much cause hardware issues like crashes, slowdowns and BSODs ?

[danny009]

Since Windows 10 is such a big bloatware & default-settings-can-go-wrong all the time in my experience so I ask should I use default settings regardless (of everything) or should change settings and tweak stuff to my liking?

Windows 10 22H2 this is. I ask for both desktop and laptops. Please keep in mind I ask settings not pre installed garbage I remove them anyways. I used to change things all the time back in Windows XP days. What is your experience on this? Thank you

 

[MrLitschel]

I've change a lot of settings in Windows 10 without any ill effects. I use a combination of changing defaults through Windows Settings, Group Policy and RegEdit.

Some of the setting are harder to adjust. When regedit is used first and then going through the Windows Settings later on, it may set the registry changes made back to default. I learnt to do Group Policy first, Windows Settings second and Regedit for more precise control

 

[EggShell]

default-settings-can-go-wrong all the time in my experience

The default settings don't go wrong at all, most problems are caused by user error and "tweaking" things which they don't understand.

Windows doesn't really require any changes other than maybe disabling "AI" rubbish like Copilot and Cortana which can easily be done from the Settings app.

 

[onespeedbiker]

Windows works very well in its default state. Even attempts to "debloat" Windows has little to no affect on its speed, nor does "cleaning" the registry. IOW, you can spend a lot of time tweaking or uninstalling software with little to no affect on performance and yet one registry tweak can render Windows unusable.

 

[Math Geek]

it really depends on what your goal is and what/how you tweak things.

when i went through and delete/disable everything i did not want it ran fine. i've also been doing this since win xp days myself so i have a pretty good idea how to do it safely and ensure i can undo changes if i break stuff.

only issue was that removing all the xbox/game type bloat made MS games not work anymore. so forza and a handful of other MS games stopped working. this was a vm so no biggie to start over but it was hard to figure out what needed to stay to get them working and i gave up after a while. seems it all has to stay from what i could figure out through trial and error.

cortana, edge, defender, telemetry, update and many other similar windows crapware removed with no problems. my goal was not performance gains so i did not bother bench marking anything so no clue if it had any effect. it always has in the past so i assume it likely has some positive effect, but that's just an educated guess.

overall, this forum is MASSIVELY pro MS so you won't get much help tweaking windows here i'm sad to say. as you've already seen, the response is usually "leave it alone, daddy MS knows what it's doing so be a good little user and take what they give you". those days of it being a normal enthusiast thing to do won't be supported here. i'm sure there are other places that still enjoy the fun of it, but not sure where that is anymore. i do all my tinkering myself and don't rely on anyone's input anymore. so other than a few searches here and there, i mainly work with trial and error.

 

[EggShell]

as you've already seen, the response is usually "leave it alone, daddy MS knows what it's doing so be a good little user and take what they give you".

As mentioned earlier, there is little to no benefit to performing any "tweaks" and since the average forum user usually falls into two camps: those who are blissfully computer illiterate and those who think they know more than they really do, it is often best to recommend that they don't change anything other than the basics.

 

[USAFRet]

We've seen multiple cases here where, in the interest of 'tweaking', someone deletes or disables something critical. Sometimes to the point of needing a full reinstall.

 

[Math Geek]

there is a ton of benefit, trouble is, it's not a benefit you personally want. therefore, no one should want it nor try it in your opinion.

we were all totally 100% clueless at one point or another. more than once really as we learned new things about pcs. from hardware to software to tweaking to overclocking to networking etc etc etc.

so when you had your first idea and asked about it, you were told to not bother and you went "sure, my bad for thinking things...."???

of course not, you read some, got some answers, tried some stuff, totally broke your windows install, reinstalled and tried again and so on and so on. i still managed to FUBAR windows often enough. that's half the fun. thank goodness for vm's as it makes it super easy to go back to a known good working point!!

we can never get to explain step 1 with a new person which is of course "try this and all tinkering on a second install or a vm so when you break it (and you will) it's easy to start over and you don't lose anything."

before anyone with any experience here can start them on the road to learning, all they get is "oh dear god, don't even try it, you might mess something up" rather than taking the time to explain the risks, how to be safe about it and then help them with that first hack job that they will absolutely do to whatever poor windows install gets in the way

or do what we do here, discourage them and let them instead go the cesspool of ignorance known as youtube and reditt for all their learning needs.....

 

[USAFRet]

or do what we do here, discourage them and let them instead go the cesspool of ignorance known as youtube and reditt for all their learning needs.....

What we usually see here is the aftermath of being in the cesspool.

 

[EggShell]

How many users actually bother trying things in a VM or performing backup prior?

so when you had your first idea and asked about it, you were told to not bother and you went "sure, my bad for thinking things...."???

of course not, you read some, got some answers, tried some stuff, totally broke your windows install, reinstalled and tried again and so on and so on.

No, not the case for me at all, I've never broken any Windows installations. Most of my knowledge I've acquired is from reading books and technical blogs, as well as, actually spending time reading the MSDN documentation!

or do what we do here, discourage them and let them instead go the cesspool of ignorance known as youtube and reditt for all their learning needs.....

Like @USAFRet said, most users read or watch rubbish on YouTube / Reddit and then start complaining that their computer doesn't work properly.

If they want to learn, then I encourage them to actually purchase a quality book from a reputable publisher.

 

[Math Geek]

thanks for making my point for me everyone 😉

they come here first like the OP, we discourage them, they turn to the homeland of bad ideas and then come back once they've totally FUBAR'd it hoping we might be able to help fix it. which of course we can't.

rather than as i already said, we had the chance first off (again like this very thread) to take em in before they get to the storm of stupidity that is reditt and youtube. show em how to do it right and then sit back and know they got the right base knowledge to enjoy a lifetime of messing with windows safely and as enjoyably as possible.

i do know that a lot of the hate comes from those who don't really know the answer, but rather than stay out of it, insist on a default "don't mess it or it might break" answer rather than sitting back, watching the answers flow and possibly learn something new. or ignore the thread and move on with your life. but that's never gonna happen and i know this. this is not the only topic here that gets this treatment really so

If they want to learn, then I encourage them to actually purchase a quality book from a reputable publisher.

and please do link me to the awesome book you read on how to tweak windows. it should cover removing bloat, features i don't want, adjust settings not meant to be adjusted and those very obscure ones that can be changed and the many other activities along this line us windows outlaws want to get involved in. probably the most important one would be how to manually delete stuff i don't want and then deal with any possible dependency conflicts it may bring about. cause that is probably the hardest thing to work on when really going nuts after the obvious tweaks

i don't believe for a micro-second you have really deep dived tinkered with windows and NEVER broken an install. just a deep dive into group policy in the pro version is easy enough to break stuff, never mind regedit and other ways to get yourself in trouble. this tells me, you don't actually do any of what is being asked about here. cause there is no way to do any of this and stay 100% stable. it's just not possible. over time you can get a good stable install but the next "tweak" can easily blow that out of the water. the fun is learning when to be happy with it and stop messing about for the daily driver vs when to try that one last idea. hence rule 1 to always work on a non vital install and not your daily driver.

i've taken to cloning my install so it's got all the stuff on it already. then tinker away. if i break it then restore the clone back to working and try again. easy to do with my vm and still easy with 2 physical drives as well if you wish to go that way.


and finally, how the heck do you do that @EggShell type thing where it pings the person?? i see it a lot and would love to know how the heck to do it.

edit: huh seems like just typing it is enough to insert the ping thingy. i like simple answers. lol

 

[onespeedbiker]

LOL, as a Babyboomer that started with a XT 8086 I can't tell you how many times I broke Windows tweaking or playing with fixes I read about (back in the day when it was necessary). Today I just want it to work (if I want to debloat a Windows install it takes about 20 minutes removing or deleting software apps I don't want, which frees up very little space in reality, but at least I don't have to look at them) which it usually does, with the exception of having my wifi printer going offline from time to time.

 

[Math Geek]

is it odd that i actually miss chasing down IRQ conflicts and such? though i def don't miss it taking 2 days to get a new peripheral working with win 98 SE despite it working fine with plain old 98.

windows has come a long way, that's for sure. i do marvel at some of the things win 10 can do vs the older versions. however, with it has come a ton of things i simply can not live with. so what used to be done out of necessity just to get it working, is now done to bring it back into my control somewhat. i know i'm in the tiny minority who still thinks the pc i built and payed for is somehow mine. i bought the OS and it should do what i want/need it to do, when i need/want it to do it. not what/when MS feels like allowing me to do it.

i ditched windows for linux when win 10 came out anyway, so that's my daily driver. but i do keep a vm around for some games i can't play on linux. it's pretty much stock other than some basic tweaks. but i will always enjoy tinkering with windows just cause i can. so i have a second drive just to test out my latest experiment with windows as i slowly but surely whittle it down the bare minimum.

i love to help others learn the same and i think we miss a lot of opportunities here to educate. i don't get offended until the same people who deny those the chance to learn, then mock and ridicule those they refused to teach for making some obvious mistakes that could have been avoided with some basic knowledge.

as Coolio put it so well

"They say I gotta learn, but nobody's here to teach me"

 

[onespeedbiker]

About 5-6 years ago I started collecting old Thinkpads and played around obtaining hardware upgrades and the OEM software and switching hard drives so I could boot different versions of Windows and MS-DOS (the older models required complete disassembly but the later models have outside access). It's amazing how well those old laptops were made and you can still find CPU and bios upgrades for them. It's one way to address the, I need to mess with my computer jones.

 

[EggShell]

and please do link me to the awesome book you read on how to tweak windows.

I was actually referring to learning how a modern operating system works and how Windows manages things, at least then you'll have a better understanding of what you're changing and how to troubleshoot any problems which may arise.

It's like when users recommend that certain services are disabled yet have no understanding of what they do or what they're used for. Do they even understand how to check for service dependencies or wherever it is used as a COM server? Or when users arbitrarily recommend that DISM and SFC be run yet have no understanding of what it does and what it should be used for.

i don't believe for a micro-second you have really deep dived tinkered with windows and NEVER broken an install

It depends on what you mean by "deep-dive"? You can do a deep dive very easily without breaking Windows, it seems that you just referring to changing random group policies and changing registry values to see what would happen. If I need to understand how something works, then I'll usually open up something like IDA, get a trace using Process Monitor or use WinDbg.

 

[beastmodebeats]

Dont tweak it yourself, use Pegasun System Utilities app to tweak it safely and effectively.

 

[USAFRet]

Dont tweak it yourself, use Pegasun System Utilities app to tweak it safely and effectively.

And only use utilities like this if you read and understand exactly what each command does.

Which no one ever does.
Just click click click, make it all better.

 

[Silas Sanchez]

I can only speak based on my rigorous experience with 6 win10 machines (4 of them powerful workstation laptops), I have spent many years experimenting & tweaking windows 10 with dummy laptops so I know this horrible PO* inside and out.

In general windows 10 is super sensitive to anything you do because M$ awful nasty people have made everything so mixed and so when you change one thing it can affect something else, as crazy as it seems every single windows build is different, in fact every exact build is different, so different its a lottery, I think its a conspiracy on M$s behalf just to mess with us. So every single thing I do I must test it out on a dummy laptop, then prove that it works on my machine which can take up to months before I deem the tweak stable.
Windows 10 is absolute utter junk, its not the bloat, there is little bloat as it runs very stable and fast, its the bugs, broken parts of the OS that act like a land mine hidden in a grassy field. What is really meant by debloat is removing nefarious rubbish like edge, photos, anything that spies etc.

all the hardware crashes, BSODs I have had are caused by awful SSDs, RAM primarily, and general issues with the mobo. Windows 10 itself is actually remarkable stable vs vista & 7 in ordinary use. M$ made sure of this as you are the product. However, where vista & 7 destroy 10 is when something goes wrong, if you get a serious boot issue you are screwed, and better hope you have the OS backed up. Absolute nothing recovery wise from microsoft has ever done anything for me, its all trollware, made by the same people at Microsft.com who say "just run a SPC scan" facepalm.... Absolutely no hope this world.

It has taken me years to get windows 10 to where it is and doing some serious dodgy stuff has made the OS actually usable and not a piece of cancer that it is out of the box. This is why windows 11 is dead as road kill, because its implementing too much and its watered down too much and you simply cant remove toxic stuff and bring back the old stuff.

So yeah, my machines are locked down like area 51, as soon as you allow updates your system is compromised, because the updates do nefarious stuff behind your back and change stuff and break stuff. I installed RAW image extension and surprise surprise it didnt work with many RAW formats but instead it messed up my thumbnails of images & videos in subtle ways. Shocking, but that is what windows has become since the days of 7. Back in the vista days MS employees actually had some artistry, now they just invent utter useless AI rubbish. Im getting off windows like the US is getting off china, its just not right what they are doing.

Someone else mentioned Defender..... HAHAHAHAH....Since I removed that piece of evil, my god,.... my god indeed....The system runs so much smoother and more responsive. You know something is wrong when a near 20year old vista machine runs faster. After a while phrases like "you should be ashamed of your self" loose all meaning.

But the biggest farce of all is this unfounded dogma that if you tweak windows you will break it, absolute nonsense. This dogma is so entrenched in society people just accept it without actually knowing their flaws, they cant be reasoned with, cognitive bias is a powerful thing.

 

[Ralston18]

@Silas Sanchez

Question:

If I go into my system and make some tweak that satisfies some requirement on my part - well and good.

Yet how can I then complain if some future windows update is released that makes the system go "belly up" because of that unexpected tweak? Some tweak made by using gpedit, regedit, Powershell, or other tools.

Properly tested, documented, etc. or not....

= = = =

Regarding:

"It has taken me years to get windows 10 to where it is and doing some serious dodgy stuff has made the OS actually usable and not a piece of cancer that it is out of the box."

So exactly what was done to make the OS actually usable? What was tweaked? Examples?

Agree: Windows can be tweaked without breaking it. But like many other things there are limits.

Good that you can push those limits to your own requirements and satisfactions.

Not every user should be tweaking things and, in fact, many organizations limit what end users can do/tweak.

"Shall not" versus "Cannot". Applicable to admin types as well.

That is more my understanding of the "dogma".

 

[Winterson]

I have used every version of Windows release by Microsoft and it is not a stable operating system. It became even less stable when new verions allowed applications to directly access the kernel to get performance on par with OS/2.

Always a good idea to do backups, including the registry, before making any changes. There are also well tested tweaks that have been around for months and so any issues are likely to have surfaced. I wait to do Microsoft Windows updates for a couple months for this reason.