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3 Application Compatibility Registry Tweaks to Boost Windows Performance

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You all are aware of our “Master Tutorial” series which helps you in making your Windows faster:

And today in this tutorial, we are going to share 3 more registry tweaks which will help you in improving your system performance.

We all know about “Application Compatibility” feature present in Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8/8.1 and Windows 10 operating systems. It helps you in running old software programs which are not compatible with new Windows versions. It monitors your system and whenever you run a program, it looks through a compatibility database. If it finds a match for the running application, it offers you the solution or compatibility fixes. If a match is not found, it shows a message that the application has a known problem with current Windows version.

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Application compatibility feature comes with 3 main components:

  • Application Compatibility Engine
  • Program Compatibility Assistant
  • SwitchBack Compatibility Engine

Application Compatibility Engine is the main part of the system loader and performs the check through program compatibility database.

Program Compatibility Assistant (PCA) monitors user initiated programs for known compatibility issues at run time and provides recommended solutions to the user.

SwitchBack Compatibility Engine provides older system behavior to older applications and new system behavior to new applications.

All these 3 components are enabled by default in Windows. Turning off these features will boost your system performance. However it may degrade the compatibility of older applications and may not block known incompatible applications from installing. Also you’ll not receive solutions to known compatibility issues when running applications.

Turning off “Application Compatibility” feature is useful for people who like faster systems and want to achieve maximum performance from their systems and are aware of compatibility of the applications they are using.

So if you want to make your Windows faster and don’t care about application compatibility, you can follow these instructions to turn application compatibility feature off:

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1. Type regedit in RUN or Start Menu search box and press Enter. It’ll open Registry Editor.

2. Now go to following key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\

3. Create a new key AppCompat under Windows key.

4. Select new AppCompat key and in right-side pane, create following 3 new DWORD values:

  • DisableEngine
  • DisablePCA
  • SbEnable

5. Set values of DisableEngine and DisablePCA to 1 and value of SbEnable to 0

Disable_Application_Compatibility_Feature_in_Windows.png

6. If you are using 64-bit Windows edition, you’ll also need to follow the same steps 3-5 for following key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\

7. That’s it. Close Registry Editor and restart your system to take effect.

Now you should notice faster system performance but you’ll be unable to enjoy application compatibility feature.

PS: If you want to restore default settings and want to enable application compatibility feature, just remove the 3 DWORD values created in step 4.

NOTE: If you don’t want to modify Registry manually and want a ready-made Registry script to do the task automatically, download following ZIP file, extract it and run the extracted REG file. It’ll ask for confirmation, accept it:

Download Registry Script

BONUS TIP: Using Group Policy Editor

You can disable “Application Compatibility” feature using Group Policy Editor as well:

1. Press WIN+R keys together to launch RUN dialog box. Now type gpedit.msc and press Enter. It’ll open Group Policy Editor.

2. Now go to:

Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Windows Components -> Application Compatibility

3. In right-side pane, look for following options:

  • Turn Off Application Compatibility Engine
  • Turn Off Program Compatibility Assistant
  • Turn Off SwitchBack Compatibility Engine

These options are set to Not Configured by default. Double-click on each option and set all options to Enabled. Click on Apply button and then OK button to exit.

Disable_Application_Compatibility_Feature_Windows.png

Close Group Policy Editor and restart your system to take effect.

PS: If you want to restore default settings in future, set the above mentioned options in Group Policy Editor to “Not Configured” again.

Thank to our reader “Denilson” for sharing group policy editor trick…

Feel free to share your feedback in your comment. Do you use application compatibility feature in Windows?

Published in: Windows 10, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows Vista

About the author: Vishal Gupta (also known as VG) has been awarded with Microsoft MVP (Most Valuable Professional) award. He holds Masters degree in Computer Applications (MCA). He has written several tech articles for popular newspapers and magazines and has also appeared in tech shows on various TV channels.

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Comments

NOTE: Older comments have been removed to reduce database overhead.

  2. ^^ No. Except no access to compatibility mode. If you dont run applications in compatibility mode, you can increase system performance by disabling it.

  3. Will this affect older apps (or games) that don’t use compatibility mode? Midtown Madness 2 runs great and is my favorite.

  5. ^^ Launching will be definitely faster, also you should notice a little bit improvement in overall system performance because the application compatibility feature will not regularly monitor running programs, etc.

    @NSDCars5
    No. If a program is not using compatibility mode, it’ll not be affected.

  6. With my 64-bit, it will not allow me to make another key named “AppCompat”. It states there’s already a key with the same name. Is there a workaround for this?

    Also I was wondering, with 64-bit, you don’t have to create any QWORDS? Only DWORDS. Thank you!

  7. ^^ If the key already exists, you dont need to recreate it. Simply create the mentioned DWORD values in right-side pane.

  8. Can we also “Disable Application Compatibility Feature in Windows 7”
    by stopping or disable some services ?

  9. ^^ You can set “Program Compatibility Assistant Service” to Manual but it would be a partial solution. The perfect solution would be using the above mentioned registry tweaks.

  11. Good idea, VG. If I’d like to have the ability to manually set and use compatibility via the executable’s properties, but would definitely like to disable the monitoring aspect, which of these settings should I use?

  13. HI

    I’ve test this “tweak” today, almost OK, why almost?
    S.I.W 2011 (latest free version) stop working properly after this reg. tweak, generally SIW can’t read sensors from mobo, never ending scan and program hangs, You can close window but SIW process is still present in task manager, after tweak reverse works OK again, just informative, SIW don’t use compatibility option, it is native Windows 7 program (also), so this reg. tweak isn’t for me 🙂

  14. I’d just like to inform you that this tweak can cause some problems with “Defraggler”, an application made by Piriform, the makers of CCleaner. With this tweak applied, one can experience problems in performing “Boot Time Defrag” under Defraggler.

  15. These tweaks make some app like CPUZ, Speecy, SpeedFan and HWMonitor don’t run anymore. (I don’t use compatibility mode on these apps.)

  16. hmm nice article VG but why can’t i see the AppCompat under the Windows key? i’m using 64-bit version of windows 7..

  17. There seems to be a problem running iTunes with this tweak, getting iTunes to detect an iDevice or remain stable for a reasonable period of time is impossible. I removed the tweak and lo and behold, it works again.

  18. I too was having trouble with iTunes and Dropbox syncing.

    With these tweaks applied these sync services will not automatically happen.

    Once the tweaks were removed everything is syncing properly.

  20. When I try to rename the key “new key #1” in “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\”, it gives me an error:

    [Window Title]
    Error Renaming Key

    [Content]
    The Registry Editor cannot rename New Key #1. The specified key name already exists. Type another name and try again.

    [OK]

  21. You can also do this in gpedit.msc instead of regedit, just press Windows Key + R and type gpedit.msc. Now, go to Computer Configuration>Administrative Templates>Windows Components>Application Compatibility

    In the right-side you gonna see the three application compatibility to disable that’s you see in this guide, for disable just double click in the three following setting

    Turn Off Application Compatibility Engine – Double click and them select Enabled, Apply and OK.
    Turn Off Program Compatibility Assistant – Double click and them select Enabled, Apply and OK.
    Turn Off SwitchBack Compatibility Engine – Double click and them select Enabled, Apply and OK.

    Now, restart your computer to changes take effect.

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