WinUtils

Windows 11 tweaking utilities, written in C# / .NET 9.

Six projects live here:

Project	What it is
src/WinUtils	WPF app with the debloat / privacy / performance tools. Runs against the .NET 9 Desktop Runtime.
src/WinBorder	Tiny event-driven helper that removes Windows 11 DWM window borders. Published with Native AOT.
src/WinSnip	Tray screenshot tool — full screen, region, or click a window. Saves straight to the Desktop.
src/WinView	Minimal image viewer — zoom, pan, arrow-key folder navigation. ~0.2 MB, no dependencies beyond the runtime.
src/WinShell	Work in progress. Raw Win32 (no WPF/WinForms) Windows 7-style taskbar and Start menu replacement. See TODO.md.
src/WinVrr	Console tool that overrides a monitor's VRR refresh range (CRU-style EDID override) to tame OLED VRR flicker.

Download

Prebuilt binaries are in dist/, one folder per app and architecture — winutils-x64 / winutils-arm64 and winsnip-x64 / winsnip-arm64.

• WinUtils — download the whole folder; the exe needs the files beside it, and the .NET 9 Desktop Runtime installed.
• WinSnip — a single self-contained exe. Nothing to install.
• WinView — a single exe; needs the .NET 9 Desktop Runtime.
• WinVrr — a single self-contained exe (winvrr-x64 / winvrr-arm64). Nothing to install.

WinUtils

Six pages, each a list of toggles that report what they changed:

• System — passwordless sign-in (auto-login)
• Debloat — remove OneDrive, Copilot, Edge leftovers
• Privacy — telemetry, Bing web search in Start
• Performance — disable background services this machine doesn't need
• Apps — app inventory, browser management, Claude Code installer
• Personalization — dark mode, Start menu, window borders and shell tweaks

The window-border toggle starts WinBorder.exe in the current desktop session and registers it for future sign-ins. The helper has no tray icon and does not poll: it blocks in the Windows message loop until a window is shown or activation changes, and keeps borders removed from both active and inactive windows. Turning the toggle off stops the helper and restores the default DWM border color.

Auto-login

Configured the same way Sysinternals Autologon and netplwiz do it: AutoAdminLogon, DefaultUserName and DefaultDomainName under HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon, with the password stored as an encrypted LSA secret (LsaStorePrivateData) — never as a plaintext registry value.

Security: auto sign-in means anyone with physical access boots straight into the account, and a local administrator can still recover the stored password. Only enable it on a device you physically trust.

WinSnip

Runs in the tray. Captures go straight to the Desktop as Screenshot 2026-07-18 at 20.31.15.png — no editor, no save dialog.

• Ctrl+Shift+1 — the monitor under the cursor
• Ctrl+Shift+2 — drag a region
• Ctrl+Shift+3 — hover a window, click to capture it

Right-click the tray icon and enable Include window shadow to capture the composed Windows shadow and a small surrounding desktop margin with window captures.

Esc or right-click cancels. Capture uses Windows.Graphics.Capture, so hardware-accelerated windows (Chrome, Electron, games) come out correctly rather than black.

WinView

An image viewer without the weight of Photos. Opens with a path argument, a dropped file, or from Explorer's Open with menu after running WinView.exe --register (--unregister reverses it).

• Scroll to zoom at the cursor, drag to pan
• ← → step through the folder in Explorer's order
• 0 fit to window, 1 actual pixels, double-click toggles, Esc closes

JPEGs are auto-rotated from their EXIF orientation tag. Decoding is GDI+, so PNG, JPEG, GIF, BMP, TIFF and ICO work — HEIC, WebP and AVIF do not.

Registration only adds WinView to the "Open with" list; it deliberately does not seize any file type as the system default.

WinVrr

Narrows a monitor's advertised VRR range the same way CRU does: it patches the range limits descriptor in a copy of the monitor's EDID, writes it to the EDID_OVERRIDE registry key the GPU driver reads, and restarts the display adapter. Raising the floor (e.g. 48-240 → 80-240) bounds how far an OLED's refresh rate — and therefore brightness — can swing, which tames VRR flicker; frame rates below the floor are handled by LFC at a doubled refresh instead of dragging the panel down.

winvrr              # list monitors, factory and override ranges
winvrr set 80       # raise the floor to 80 Hz, keep the max
winvrr reset        # back to the factory EDID

Needs an elevated terminal for set/reset (HKLM write + driver restart; the screen blinks). --monitor <name> picks one of several monitors, --no-restart defers the driver restart. Keep max >= 2x min or LFC cannot engage below the floor (the tool warns). The override edits only the registry copy of the EDID — the monitor itself is untouched, and winvrr reset (or CRU's reset-all.exe) restores stock. Applies to the DisplayPort range; an HDMI 2.1 VRR range lives in a different EDID block that this tool does not modify.

Build

Requires Windows 11 (x64 or arm64) and the .NET 9 SDK.

dotnet publish src\WinUtils\WinUtils.csproj -c Release -r win-arm64 -p:Platform=arm64 --self-contained false -p:PublishSingleFile=true

Swap win-arm64 / arm64 for win-x64 / x64 on Intel/AMD machines. WinUtils requests Administrator via its app.manifest, so run Visual Studio elevated if you want to F5 debug; WinSnip and WinShell run as the invoking user.

Publishing WinBorder.exe with Native AOT requires Windows. When cross-publishing WinUtils from macOS or Linux, add -p:WinBorderNativeAot=false; the helper then uses the .NET 9 runtime already required by WinUtils.

Adding -p:EnableWindowsTargeting=true lets the managed projects build from macOS or Linux, WPF included.

Formatting is handled by CSharpier:

dotnet tool restore
dotnet csharpier format .

Caveats

These tools change system settings, remove inbox apps and write to HKLM. Read what a toggle does before flipping it, and have a restore point. No warranty.