Make Windows 11 more useful and less annoying with these 11 Registry hacks
Windows 11 has a number of puzzling or annoying UI changes from Windows 10 that power users might wish to change. But you can't make these tweaks from the Settings menu or even the legacy Control Panel. To make these changes, you’ll need to edit the Registry. For those unfamiliar, the Windows Registry is a set of folders and values that configure certain core functionality of the OS.
You can edit and add to it using a built-in tool called Registry Editor (aka Regedit), but be careful, because if you delete or change the wrong entries, you can mess up your entire computer. We should note that these tweaks are for power users who have full admin control over their own personal computers. By and large, if you're using a managed Windows machine, IT will have locked you out of editing the Registry (for good reason - imagine all the helpdesk calls).
1. Bring back the full right click context menu
By default, Windows 11 hides all of the available options from its right-click menus. If you want to see each one of them, you need to click "Show more options." Some options, such as "Print" and "Create shortcut," are always missing, and links to open a file in a particular program are at the bottom rather than the top of the list of options.
 vs full classic menu (right).png)
To switch to full context menus, first open Regedit and navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\CLSID. Then create a new Registry key (aka a folder) called {86ca1aa0-34aa-4e8b-a509-50c905bae2a2} underneath CLSID.
Then create another new key under {86ca1aa0-34aa-4e8b-a509-50c905bae2a2} and call it InprocServer32. Then open the default value in InprocServer32, set it to blank, and click Ok.
2. Shut down even when apps don't want you to
We’ve all been there. You go to shut down or restart your computer and you get an error message like the one above. One or more of your apps claim to have unsaved content and therefore it won’t close and won’t allow Windows to power down.
To fix this, navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer in Regedit. Then create a new key underneath that one and call it Serialize. In Serialize, create two DWORD (32-bit) values: StartupDelayInMSec and WaitForIdleState.
3. Set menu delay to 0
By default, Windows 11 waits 400 milliseconds to show expanded menus like the ones you get when you right click and select the New menu (in new or classic context menu).
To change your menu delay, open Regedit and navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop. Then open MenuShowDelay and set it to 0.
4. Add seconds to system clock
If you like to know exactly what time it is - right down to the second - you can set the system clock to show seconds in addition to hours and minutes.
5. Add your favorite program to the right-click menu
If you have a program that you use a lot, you can add it to the context menu that appears when you right click on the desktop.
6. Click once on taskbar to get last active window
But, with a simple Registry tweak, you can fix Windows 11 so that clicking on the program's taskbar icon immediately takes you to the most recently active window from that application.
7. Have startup apps launch more quickly
If you have apps that you’ve set to start when Windows starts, you will notice that it may take a while after the desktop appears before they start opening.
8. Set LastActiveClick to 1
To enable this feature, navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced in the Registry. Then create a DWORD (32-bit) value there called LastActiveClick.
9. Have startup apps launch more quickly
To get rid of the startup delay, first navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer in Regedit. Then create a new key underneath that one and call it Serialize.
10. Add seconds to system clock
To add seconds to your system clock, navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced in Regedit. Then create a DWORD (32-bit) value called ShowSecondsInSystemClock and set that value to 1.
11. Have startup apps launch more quickly
To make this change, navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer in Regedit. Then create a new key underneath that one and call it Serialize.