v1.0.4 - clearer docs and shared helpers

Clearer docs and shared helpers — same quiet behaviour

Drop-in upgrade from 1.0.3. Quiet lists and snapshot format are unchanged. Maintainer tested Start/Stop before this release.

What you get

• Clearer path for new users: START-HERE, README, and HOW-TO lead with the safe flow and call out early that you must wake Windows back up after playing.
• Shared helpers in Kit-Common (logging, elevation, SYSTEM hop, state paths). Start/Stop and the tweak/undo scripts use them — cleaner to maintain, no double UAC from the menu.
• Menu layout lives in ui/MainWindow.xaml (easier to edit). Duplicate QuietWindows-Menu.ps1.txt removed.

What did not change

• Which services and tasks get quieted
• Snapshot format and restore behaviour
• How you use it day to day: Quiet before play, Wake after

Upgrading: replace the folder (or unzip over it). If a quiet session is already active, restoring with the old build first is unnecessary but harmless. Wake Windows still matters.

v1.0.3 - Quiet Windows scripting optimization fix + Cleanup

Error reporting fixes — the kit can now hear its own failures
This release fixes a class of bug where QuietWindows reported success after doing nothing. No features changed, no new settings, no changes to what gets disabled or restored.
The main bug
Declining the Windows admin prompt raises a non-terminating error, which try/catch ignores by default. All three elevation paths relied on that catch. The result: press No on the UAC prompt, and the one-click runner still printed a green ALL DONE.
All Start-Process -Verb RunAs calls now use -ErrorAction Stop, so a declined prompt is actually detected and reported.
The bigger problem underneath
The individual fix scripts caught their own errors and returned normally on failure — not running as admin, Defender commands unavailable, no supported GPU found, registry write refused. Every one of those looked like success to the caller, so no amount of checking on the orchestrator side could have seen them.
The most common real-world case: running without admin rights, where every step printed a red ERROR and stopped, and the summary still said ALL DONE.
Fix scripts now exit non-zero on genuine failure. Optimize-My-PC waits for the elevated child, reads its exit code, counts failed steps, and reports the count instead of claiming success. "No games added yet" is still treated as a normal skip, not a failure.
Also in this release
wevtutil is a native executable and never threw, so log-enable failures were invisible. Its exit code is now checked.
Unbounded service stop: Stop-Service -Force has no timeout, so a wedged service (WSearch mid-index is the usual one) could park an elevated run with services half-disabled. Replaced with a 20-second bounded stop that walks dependent services first, preserving the previous -Force behaviour. A service that won't stop is now reported rather than hanging the run.
schtasks exit codes on the SYSTEM helper path. A refused task scheduler now reports immediately instead of waiting out the full 30-second poll.
Notes
The one-click window keeps its quiet error preference; it is cosmetic only, and anything that must be heard now sets its own error handling explicitly.
The menu's one-click button remains fire-and-forget by design — waiting on it would freeze the window — so it reports launch failures but not per-step results. Use Optimize-My-PC.bat if you want the full summary.
Restore behaviour, snapshots, and permission handling are untouched.
Upgrading: drop-in replacement. No snapshot format change, no migration. If you have a quiet session active, restoring with the old version and re-applying with the new one is unnecessary but harmless.

V1.0.2 - Quiet Windows scripting optimization fix

Error reporting fixes — the kit can now hear its own failures
This release fixes a class of bug where QuietWindows reported success after doing nothing. No features changed, no new settings, no changes to what gets disabled or restored.
The main bug
Declining the Windows admin prompt raises a non-terminating error, which try/catch ignores by default. All three elevation paths relied on that catch. The result: press No on the UAC prompt, and the one-click runner still printed a green ALL DONE.
All Start-Process -Verb RunAs calls now use -ErrorAction Stop, so a declined prompt is actually detected and reported.
The bigger problem underneath
The individual fix scripts caught their own errors and returned normally on failure — not running as admin, Defender commands unavailable, no supported GPU found, registry write refused. Every one of those looked like success to the caller, so no amount of checking on the orchestrator side could have seen them.
The most common real-world case: running without admin rights, where every step printed a red ERROR and stopped, and the summary still said ALL DONE.
Fix scripts now exit non-zero on genuine failure. Optimize-My-PC waits for the elevated child, reads its exit code, counts failed steps, and reports the count instead of claiming success. "No games added yet" is still treated as a normal skip, not a failure.
Also in this release
wevtutil is a native executable and never threw, so log-enable failures were invisible. Its exit code is now checked.
Unbounded service stop: Stop-Service -Force has no timeout, so a wedged service (WSearch mid-index is the usual one) could park an elevated run with services half-disabled. Replaced with a 20-second bounded stop that walks dependent services first, preserving the previous -Force behaviour. A service that won't stop is now reported rather than hanging the run.
schtasks exit codes on the SYSTEM helper path. A refused task scheduler now reports immediately instead of waiting out the full 30-second poll.
Notes
The one-click window keeps its quiet error preference; it is cosmetic only, and anything that must be heard now sets its own error handling explicitly.
The menu's one-click button remains fire-and-forget by design — waiting on it would freeze the window — so it reports launch failures but not per-step results. Use Optimize-My-PC.bat if you want the full summary.
Restore behaviour, snapshots, and permission handling are untouched.
Upgrading: drop-in replacement. No snapshot format change, no migration. If you have a quiet session active, restoring with the old version and re-applying with the new one is unnecessary but harmless.

v1.0.1 - fix localization update

v1.0.1 - quick fix for localization update

QuietWindows 1.0 - quiet Windows down so your games get the whole PC

A console runs one thing at a time, so your game gets the whole machine. A Windows PC doesn't — while you're playing, it's checking for updates, indexing files, scanning for viruses and updating apps you forgot you installed. Any one of those landing at the wrong moment is a stutter you can feel.

QuietWindows puts that stuff on hold while you play, and hands it all back when you're done.

Getting started

1. Download the zip below and unzip it anywhere
2. Double-click QuietWindows.bat
3. Press the big green button, restart when it says to

Then before you play, press Quiet Windows down — and after, press Wake Windows back up. That's it.

New to this? Open HOW-TO.md. It's written for people who don't want to learn what any of it means.

What's in it

• One-press setup — antivirus exclusions for your games, USB power saving off, Xbox Game Bar off, steadier system clock, graphics-card interrupts moved off your game's cores
• Before/after playing — pauses Windows Update, Search and background scanning for a session, then restores exactly what you had
• Stutter finder — records what your PC does every second while you play, then tells you which program interrupted you and what file it was reading. Not a guess
• Automatic game detection — scans Steam, Epic, Xbox, GOG, EA and Ubisoft. Add anything it misses under My Games
• Extras — fixes for one specific game. iRacing included; adding your own is just a folder drop

Is it safe?

Nothing runs until you press a button. Every button explains itself first, and every change has an Undo. Your antivirus stays on — it just stops re-scanning your games while you play them.

One thing to remember: press Wake Windows back up when you finish. Until you do, Windows Update is off (there's a -Deadman option if you're forgetful).

You'll need

Windows 10 or 11. Nothing to install.

Process Lasso (free) is only needed if you have an AMD X3D processor — the app tells you whether you do. The Windows Performance Toolkit is optional, for the deepest stutter hunting.

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MIT licensed. Built on the stutter-hunting work of the sim-racing community, who measured this properly instead of guessing.