WinUtils

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

Four 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.

Download

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

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.

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 runs 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.