[Partly Solved] Optimized Image Guide - System Properties always back to defaults after reboot

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ohbehave

New Member
I've installed Windows 10 21H1 21H2 Pro following the Optimized Image Guide (December 2023 update) by Hellbovine.

I noticed immediately that all of the settings in System Properties > Advanced > Performance were being reset to their defaults on every reboot. The one that really matters is 'Show window contents while dragging' because when this is unticked it seems you either get just a gray outline or, sometimes, nothing at all to guide you when moving windows. I have to keep toggling this on after every reboot along with some other useful settings. [Just out of interest, most of these are disabled by default, is this by design?]

I don't think this is down to any other changes I've made because I noticed this immediately after install.

I made the following changes to the ISO while following Hellbovine's guide:
  • Installed SSU-19041.1704
  • Installed cumulative update KB5026361
  • Applied the Privacy template
  • Disabled all the options under Configure > Settings > Privacy except:
    • Allow telemetry: Basic
    • Enforce DCOM Hardening Changes: Default
    • Remove registry logs of package install locations: Default
    • Search - Find My Files: Default
    • Shellbags: Default
  • Enabled .NET Framework 3.5
  • Applied a bunch of registry files to remove unnecessary shell and contextual menu items.
Troubleshooting Windows isn't my strong suit so suggestions are welcome.
 
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My registry files do intentionally set the Visual Effects so that everything is unchecked except for font smoothing within the "let Windows choose" button. Unchecking most things helps reduce overhead, but is also the most frequently requested setup on the internet for these settings.

You should be able to change it all on a live install though. What happens when you click the other three options for best appearance, best performance, and custom? If any of these modes are resetting after a reboot, then something else is interfering. To change the "let Windows choose" mode, edit my registry files and modify the relevant keys there.
 
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garlin said:
Installing the SSU is redundant, it's automatically included in the current CU. It's not harmful, but unnecessary.
Click to expand...
You're probably right normally, but the official KB article for this particular CU indicates that the extraction and manual pre-slipstreaming of this SSU is necessary to avoid a Microsoft Edge installation bug for custom ISOs, which I assumed applied to one created with NTLite.
Hellbovine said:
My registry files do intentionally set the Visual Effects so that everything is unchecked except for font smoothing within the "let Windows choose" button. Unchecking most things helps reduce overhead, but is also the most frequently requested setup on the internet for these settings.
Click to expand...
I just wanted to make sure this was wasn't part of the symptoms. I normally untick most of these myself anyway because, like you say, it's mostly just a CPU hog.
Hellbovine said:
You should be able to change it all on a live install though. What happens when you click the other three options for best appearance, best performance, and custom?
Click to expand...
Interestingly, if I enable Best Appearance, click Apply, then reboot, this persists - IOW Best Appearance and all the sub-options remain ticked. But if I go Custom and tick only the following:
  • Show shadows under windows
  • Show window contents while dragging
  • Smooth edges of screen fonts
  • Smooth-scroll list boxes
Then reboot only ONE of these persists:
  • Smooth edges of screen fonts
Bizarre. If only one was going to remain ticked, couldn't it have been the one I actually want? :p:rolleyes:
Hellbovine said:
If any of these modes are resetting after a reboot, then something else is interfering. To change the "let Windows choose" mode, edit my registry files and modify the relevant keys there.
Click to expand...
So you're suggesting I modify the original Registry files that you supplied, tweak them to match to my personal defaults and then re-apply them on my current live install, right?
Anything so long as I don't need to do a fresh install :eek:
 
ohbehave said:
...if I go Custom and tick only the following...
Click to expand...
Visual Effects can be really cumbersome due to Microsoft's clunky design of that settings page and the registry keys underneath it. There's things that can interfere with some of them, and solving your situation is probably as simple as deleting conflicting keys acquired elsewhere. That would take up more time than it's worth hunting things down though, since the traditional tweaking method for that settings page is obsolete and the focus should just shift to the better method, discussed below.

ohbehave said:
...modify the original Registry files that you supplied, tweak them to match to my personal defaults and then re-apply them on my current live install, right?
Click to expand...
I attached a registry file to this reply, which you can download anywhere and double-click on it to install exactly what you want (show shadows, show window, smooth edges, smooth-scroll) with everything else disabled. No reinstall of Windows required, but you may need to manually select the "let Windows choose" button again and then reboot afterwards. To explore and personalize my tweaks, right-click on a registry file and click "Edit" to see its contents, including documentation I added about what they handle.
 

Attachments

  • Visual_Effects.reg
    4.9 KB
Well I spoke too soon. So the reg file works and the settings are shown as applied when I select Let Windows Decide... IOW each of the 4 options is ticked in the list.

But... the one setting I find most important - Show window contents while dragging - isn't actually applied in practice, but acts as though it's still disabled. Very odd. All the others work as they should.

If I untick 'Show window contents while dragging' this automatically changes the main setting to Custom. I click Apply and the window dragging behaviour follows the way the setting is toggled and so is disabled, as expected. If I now choose Let Windows Decide... and then Apply, the reg file's options are applied and the window dragging behaviour follows the fact that the setting is now enabled and so works as it should. But then this is lost on reboot just like before...

Open to suggestions.
 
Can you elaborate on what "lost on reboot" means. Are you saying it removes checkmarks from something, or are the settings remaining checked and the issue is that the feature to display contents while dragging things around stops working after a reboot? Try the following without skipping anything, no matter how trivial. I have more ideas, but this should solve it or at least give us some insights.

1) Go to the Visual Effects page and select the "best appearance" option, then click "Apply" and "OK" before exiting. Now, reboot.

2) Go back to the Visual Effects page and select the "best performance" option, then click "Apply" and "OK" before exiting. Reboot again.

3) Revisit the Visual Effects page and select the "let Windows choose" option, then click "Apply" and "OK" before exiting. Reboot one last time, then check to see if the contents of Windows appear while dragging them around. This step assumes the previous registry file I attached is still active.

If that doesn't fix it, make sure you are rebooting where indicated and bring up Task Manager to look at the CPU display for "Up time" to see if it only has seconds displayed after a reboot, otherwise if there are minutes, hours, or days it means Fast Startup is enabled and that can interfere with testing by preventing the computer from truly rebooting or shutting down, so disable it and perform the steps again.
 
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Hellbovine said:
Can you elaborate on what "lost on reboot" means. Are you saying it removes checkmarks from something, or are the settings remaining checked and the issue is that the feature to display contents while dragging things around stops working after a reboot?
Click to expand...
Yup, I should have made that clearer. It's the latter: the settings configured with your new, custom .reg file above remain ticked, Let Windows Choose is still the governing main selection, but 'Show window contents while dragging' doesn't work in practice. Toggling that setting as I described at the end of my last post fixes that until the next reboot.

I'll run those steps and post the results.
 
Hellbovine said:
1) Go to the Visual Effects page and select the "best appearance" option, then click "Apply" and "OK" before exiting. Now, reboot.

2) Go back to the Visual Effects page and select the "best performance" option, then click "Apply" and "OK" before exiting. Reboot again.

3) Revisit the Visual Effects page and select the "let Windows choose" option, then click "Apply" and "OK" before exiting. Reboot one last time, then check to see if the contents of Windows appear while dragging them around. This step assumes the previous registry file I attached is still active.
Click to expand...
Followed these steps to the letter, but 'Show window contents while dragging' is still not applied in practice. After each reboot I made sure that the previous choice was still selected in Visual Effects before moving on to the next step, so I was confident it had been applied properly.
Hellbovine said:
make sure you are rebooting where indicated
Click to expand...
Yup.
Hellbovine said:
bring up Task Manager to look at the CPU display for "Up time" to see if it only has seconds displayed after a reboot
Click to expand...
2m30s, which is reasonable given I had to do some real-world stuff after the PC booted but before I could open Task Manager. Also, here's the output of
powercfg /A
<snip>
Fast Startup
Hibernation is not available.
 
I had purposely broken my visual effects so I could replicate this issue, and was able to repair it with my previous reply on an old desktop and new laptop. Both machines also worked correctly out of the box with my guide, so the issue should be outside of that. It sounds like something on your machine is restoring registry keys each reboot, so let's test that theory next.

QUERY REGISTRY
1) Ensure the machine hasn't been modified from the last testing, otherwise set the visual effects back to "best performance" again, reboot, then select "let Windows choose" to ensure we have a clean slate. Reboot, and the 4 boxes you want should still be checked, but folder contents will stop appearing on your machine while dragging after the second reboot, which preps us for the next step.

2) Put the following into an elevated command prompt:
reg query "HKCU\Control Panel\Desktop" /v FontSmoothing
reg query "HKCU\Control Panel\Desktop" /v UserPreferencesMask
reg query "HKCU\Control Panel\Desktop" /v DragFullWindows
reg query "HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\VisualEffects" /v VisualFXSetting

The results should match the attached PNG, otherwise the theory is confirmed and you have a script, software, bug, or corruption causing registry keys to be overwritten at every reboot. I also attached another registry file, which shows the current_user keys associated with only the 4 settings you want checked, using the traditional approach. Edit the file to see the keys and my comments. This new registry file is what Windows is silently doing in the background when we toggle visual effects manually.

TROUBLESHOOTING
Here are ideas to find the culprit, including some stuff I gleaned from Google.

A) Standard user accounts may have difficulty modifying visual effects. Switch to an administrator account to modify stuff.

B) If this is a virtual machine, that could be a factor and testing it on a real install is recommended. VMWare for example, has a policy that disables the showing of contents while dragging things.

C) Many users report that using the "sign out" option instead of restart or shut down causes these problems. I'm not sure what would cause that other than a Windows bug, but it's worth experimenting with. If a user profile is corrupted, creating a new administrator account then deleting the old one is a workaround to avoid a reinstall.

D) Third party software is known to interfere with user tweaks, such as Wallpaper Engine, Citrix, and Razer Cortex Booster, which can modify Visual Effects or other settings. The same is true of many tools and scripts people download, so scrutinize all your software.

E) Messing with accessibility options can affect things like Visual Effects. Check if your NTLite preset is removing accessibility components or that any tools or scripts aren't modifying accessibility settings.

F) In your first post, if you processed all those steps listed at once there's some major potential for bugs, and you probably need to make a new image. Check out this guide (link1) and look at the processing order in particular.

G) I noticed you are on 21H1, but then you install updates which changes the build. Instead, just download a newer source that already has all the updates integrated. Or, use 21H2 and don't do Windows Updates, which is what my guide is written for. Otherwise, you introduce more potential for bugs and quirks, because not all tweaks work on every build or version. Also be sure your ISO came from Microsoft, as there are too many people on this forum downloading modified images from third parties, and that's the root of countless problems.

H) If you still can't get it figured out, then make three new images. One that is a default Windows, with only the registry file from my previous reply integrated and see how that behaves. If it works, then make the second image using only my guide (but edit the visual effects to use the 4 tweaks you want) and if that works make a third image using only your other tweaks and see how that goes. This troubleshooting tells you which layer the culprit is in, so you can find the problem easier and also eliminates any post-install items which may be interfering right now.

Google insights: link2, link3, link4, link5, link6, link7, link8
 

Attachments

  • Query.png
    Query.png
    31.4 KB
  • VFX.reg
    1.2 KB
Last edited:
Hellbovine said:
) Ensure the machine hasn't been modified from the last testing, otherwise set the visual effects back to "best performance" again, reboot, then select "let Windows choose" to ensure we have a clean slate. Reboot, and the 4 boxes you want should still be checked, but folder contents will stop appearing on your machine while dragging after the second reboot, which preps us for the next step.
Click to expand...
Done. After the reboot I confirmed the 4 settings were applied and that the windows contents were not showing when dragged, before proceeding.
Hellbovine said:
2) Put the following into an elevated command prompt:
reg query "HKCU\Control Panel\Desktop" /v FontSmoothing
reg query "HKCU\Control Panel\Desktop" /v UserPreferencesMask
reg query "HKCU\Control Panel\Desktop" /v DragFullWindows
reg query "HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\VisualEffects" /v VisualFXSetting
Click to expand...
The results were identical to yours. See image.
Hellbovine said:
B) If this is a virtual machine, that could be a factor and testing it on a real install is recommended. VMWare for example, has a policy that disables the showing of contents while dragging things.
Click to expand...
No, it's installed to the bare metal.
Hellbovine said:
F) In your first post, if you processed all those steps listed at once there's some major potential for bugs,
Click to expand...
I did these in stages following the guide you linked to. All in there were 6 steps with a fresh ISO created at the end of each one, and the contents of the previous ISO extracted and used as the basis for the next step:

Step 1:
  • Installed SSU-19041.1704
Step 2:
  • Installed cumulative update KB5026361
Step 3:
  • Applied the Privacy template
  • Disabled all the options under Configure > Settings > Privacy except:
    • Allow telemetry: Basic
    • Enforce DCOM Hardening Changes: Default
    • Remove registry logs of package install locations: Default
    • Search - Find My Files: Default
    • Shellbags: Default
Step 4:
  • Enabled .NET Framework 3.5
Step 5:
  • Applied the first reg file from the Hellbovine guide: Reg_0_NTLite.reg
Step 6:
  • Applied all the remaining reg files from the Hellbovine guide.
  • Applied a bunch of registry files to remove unnecessary shell and contextual menu items.
I'm going to keep coming back to this occasionally and use your list of troubleshooting steps as a guide, and thanks a ton for those. But in the meantime I'm putting this bug/etc. out to pasture to focus elsewhere. I guess I can live with manually applying this one setting after every reboot (which doesn't happen very often anyway) until I have more time to spend on it.

Hellbovine : Can't thank you enough for all the effort and input. *tips hat* *two thumbs up*
 

Attachments

  • Query Results.PNG
    Query Results.PNG
    44.9 KB
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