WindowsPowerWash

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How It Works

The default Windows installation has to cater to a very wide variety of users, and generally makes tradeoffs that sacrifice some degree of performance and responsiveness in exchange for power management, data collection, etc.

PowerWash modifies various aspects of your Windows installation. It configures your system to aggressively choose maximum performance and minimum latency over power saving. (Note: Many of the changes intentionally do not apply when on battery). It also removes bloatware and unwanted default programs, and generally cleans up the out-of-box experience. It does this through a combination of registry changes, application package removals, PowerShell cmdlets, and more.

Highlights

These are some of the most commonly wanted modifications to a standard Windows install, and PowerWash has all of them!

• Disable Microsoft telemetry / “phoning home”
• Disable automatic updates
• Remove useless or unwanted preinstalled applications – including Microsoft Edge, if desired
• Throttle “MsMpEng.exe” / “Antimalware Service Executable”
• Configure and activate maximum performance power settings
• Harden your device with advanced security configuration incorporating key settings from the NSA Secure Host Baseline, Microsoft Security Baseline, Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, and a wide range of exploit protections.
• Toggle soft real-time scheduling for IoT Enterprise SKUs (standalone scripts here)

Full Listing

Note that some editions of Windows do not have the necessary components to support certain PowerWash features. PowerWash does not impose any artificial limitations and the author continues to look for ways around Microsoft’s. All features listed below are optional and configurable using the provided PowerWashSettings.yml. (See the documentation).

✅ = Fully supported, ℹ = Partially supported, ✅ℹ = Fully supported but may require additional software, ⚠️ = Fully supported but caution encouraged, ❌ = Not supported

System Configuration - Performance

Feature	Works on Windows Home	Works on Windows Pro, Pro for Workstations	Works on Windows Enterprise, Enterprise LTSC, Education	Description
Disable HPET	✅	✅	✅	Disabling the high precision event timer may improve DPC latency on some systems
Aggressive multimedia settings	✅	✅	✅	Applying more aggressive multimedia settings can improve performance of pro audio tasks
Aggressive network adapter settings	✅	✅	✅	Disabling network adapter packet coalescing and similar options can improve DPC latency for ndis.sys/tcpip.sys
“Ultimate” performance power plan	✅	✅	✅	Enables Microsoft’s “Ultimate” performance power plan along with additional highly aggressive performance settings
Accelerated GPU scheduling	✅	✅	✅	Enabling hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling can reduce graphics latency
Higher-performance visual effects	✅	✅	✅	Disables window/tooltip animations and does not render window contents while dragging. Can modestly improve performance and significantly increase perceived responsiveness. Does not disable font smoothing.
Disable Fast Startup	✅	✅	✅	Disabling Fast Startup can fix problems with some devices since Fast Startup skips some initialization
Enable message-signaled interrupts	✅	✅	✅	Enabling message-signaled interrupts on all devices that support them can improve interrupt latency
Prioritize GPU and PCIe controller	✅	✅	✅	May improve DPC/ISR latency for tasks where high regularity is preferred
Disable automatic Windows updates	❌	✅	✅	Background updates can unexpectedly consume resources and automatic install/restart is typically not wanted.
Disable all Windows updates	✅	✅	✅	Completely disables the Windows Update feature, disabling both automatic and manual updates.
Toggle Windows updates	✅	✅	✅	Adds a script to your desktop to toggle the Windows Update feature on/off. This is the best compromise for Home editions
Disable Windows consumer features	❌	❌	✅	Disables Windows consumer features (e.g. third-party suggestions)

System Configuration - Security

Feature	Works on Windows Home	Works on Windows Pro, Pro for Workstations	Works on Windows Enterprise, Enterprise LTSC, Education	Description
Apply high-security system settings	ℹ	ℹ	✅ℹ	Applies security policies recommended by Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, the MSS Settings, Microsoft’s Security Baselines, and the NSA Secure Host Baseline, among others. Includes Attack Surface Reduction, Microsoft Defender Application Guard, browser security, exploit protection, process mitigations, and much more. Some features require Windows Pro or even Enterprise to take effect. Some features require Microsoft Endpoint Security. These settings are an addition to, not a replacement for, properly configured antivirus, VPN, firewall, hardware, and good digital hygiene. Now with optional ‘strict mode’ and ‘extra strict mode’ for additional protections that may have a more pronounced effect on performance or convenience. (In particular, some aggressive protection settings disable insecure capabilities used by some legitimate applications. If an application refuses to start, or exits with a code you’ve never seen before after running PowerWash, this is the most likely culprit.)
Throttle “Antimalware Service Executable”	✅	✅	✅	Configures Windows Defender to only run scans when the computer is idle; reduces priority of Defender tasks and limits their CPU usage
Disable Defender Real-Time Protection	⚠️	⚠️	⚠️	CAUTION: This will make your device less secure. Requires Tamper Protection to be disabled. Not recommended and still experimental.
Disable Defender entirely	⚠️	⚠️	⚠️	CAUTION: This will make your device less secure. Requires Tamper Protection to be disabled. Not recommended and still experimental.
Disable Windows telemetry	ℹ	ℹ	✅	Through Microsoft approved means, Home edition can disable some telemetry, Pro edition can disable most telemetry, and Enterprise/Education can disable all telemetry. However, by disabling the relevant services/tasks, we can effectively (but likely with side effects like wasted resources) disable telemetry completely on any edition.

System Configuration - Usability

Feature	Works on Windows Home	Works on Windows Pro, Pro for Workstations	Works on Windows Enterprise, Enterprise LTSC, Education	Description
Show seconds in taskbar clock	✅	✅	✅
Show “Run as different user” in Start menu	✅	✅	✅
Show file extensions and hidden items in Explorer	✅	✅	✅
Remove 3D Objects / Music / Photos / Videos from File Explorer	✅	✅	✅
Clean up default taskbar	✅	✅	✅	Mainly geared toward fresh installs of Windows
Show UAC Prompt on same desktop	✅	✅	✅	Shows the UAC Prompt (“Do you want to allow this app to make changes to your device?”) on the same desktop you are using, rather than distractingly showing the prompt on a blank desktop. Allegedly this is slightly less secure, but it’s also much more convenient.
Disable mono audio	✅	✅	✅	Disables mono audio, which combines the left and right audio channels.

Bloatware Removal

Feature	Works on Windows Home	Works on Windows Pro, Pro for Workstations	Works on Windows Enterprise, Enterprise LTSC, Education	Description
Disable/uninstall Cortana	✅	✅	✅	Most people find Cortana a nuisance
Remove preinstalled applications	✅	✅	✅	Removes Skype, Teams, Xbox, News/Weather, Solitaire Collection, etc. This list is configurable!
Remove phantom applications	✅	✅	✅	(BETA) Removes remnants of uninstalled applications from the registry. This can sometimes have a modest impact on performance, e.g. when the system is frequently looking up a large number of paths that don’t exist. We can’t remove every single reference to the application, but we can clean house quite a bit.
Remove Microsoft Edge	✅	✅	✅	Thoroughly removes Microsoft Edge. While some small traces in the filesystem/registry may remain, this removes the vast majority of it and all visible signs. Requires a restart to take full effect. Windows Updates may try to reinstall Edge. This mostly appears to have been fixed, and generally the reinstalled version will be non-functional- it will just show up in the apps list but does not run. You can manually reinstall Edge at any time if you desire. Technical explanation of the removal process is here, for those interested.
Remove Windows Store	✅	✅	✅	Removes Windows Store. Yep, it’s that simple.

Software Installation

Feature	Works on Windows Home	Works on Windows Pro, Pro for Workstations	Works on Windows Enterprise, Enterprise LTSC, Education	Description
Install Group Policy Editor	✅	N/A	N/A	Installs Group Policy editor, which presents a straightforward and well-documented interface to make system changes without manually editing the registry. Group Policy editor is a Microsoft product but does not come installed by default on Home editions of Windows.
Install/Enable Hyper-V	✅	✅	✅	Installs Hyper-V, which provides virtualization capabilities for Windows. Hyper-V is a Microsoft product but does not come installed by default on Home editions of Windows. On other editions, this will just enable the Hyper-V feature as it already exists.
Install Winget	✅	✅	✅	See https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/package-manager/winget/
Install free utilities and replacements for Microsoft bloatware	✅	✅	✅	This list is configurable!

Scans and checks

Feature	Works on Windows Home	Works on Windows Pro, Pro for Workstations	Works on Windows Enterprise, Enterprise LTSC, Education	Description
System integrity checks	✅	✅	✅	Runs Microsoft’s built-in system file integrity checks to repair any corrupted system files
Check for IRQ conflicts	✅	✅	✅	Sharing interrupt request lines among multiple devices can degrade performance. This cannot be fixed from within the software.
Warn if third-party antivirus found	✅	✅	✅	Windows Defender is generally faster and better; third-party antivirus software can slow the system down substantially - must be uninstalled manually, though

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