Every card below runs the same way. The first two steps are the same for all of them; the other two are under each card, with what that card changes.
Every repair card writes back the Windows default unconditionally; it does not depend on a backup of w0a's own existing. So it also helps if some other tool was what changed your machine.
What to do
- Open w0a
- Go to the Fix page in the left menu
Fullscreen optimizations
If alt-tabbing in games became slow or fullscreen behaviour changed, restores fullscreen-optimization settings to Windows defaults.
- Type
taminto the search box - Press the button on the Fullscreen optimizations card
Game Bar / game capture
If Win+G does not open, or game recording / 'record last 30 s' stopped working, restores Game Bar and Game DVR to Windows defaults (enabled).
- Type
gameinto the search box - Press the button on the Game Bar / game capture card
Xbox / Game Pass
If Xbox app sign-in fails, Game Pass games will not launch or achievements/cloud saves stopped syncing, restores the Xbox services to their Windows default (Manual).
- Type
xboxinto the search box - Press the button on the Xbox / Game Pass card
CS2 settings
If CS2 launch options or autoexec changes caused trouble, restores Steam launch options from the backup and reverts autoexec.cfg. Steam must be closed.
- Type
cs2into the search box - Press the button on the CS2 settings card
If an FPS cap is stuck: this card deliberately does not touch CS2's own settings store (cs2_machine_convars.vcfg) — an fps_max found there is indistinguishable from one you set in the console on purpose. The way back is the Launch Options page in w0a: untick the FPS cap box and the autoexec is rewritten so the game itself persists its default (fps_max 400) again.
CS2 video settings
If CS2 will not start, shows a black screen, or its video settings look wrong, restores the copy w0a took before it first wrote to them. Windows has no default here — this file is your own settings, so with no backup nothing is done.
- Type
cs2into the search box - Press the button on the CS2 video settings card
Windowed game presentation
If windowed or borderless games flicker, go black or lose the cursor, the game shows up black in streaming or screen share, or in-game overlays stopped drawing, removes the 'optimizations for windowed games' value and lets Windows decide again. With Auto HDR on, Windows keeps the feature on by itself; before Windows 11 22H2 the value is not read at all.
- Type
pencereliinto the search box - Press the button on the Windowed game presentation card
Game and app priorities
If the whole machine stutters whenever one game or program runs (choppy mouse, crackling audio, slow alt-tab), or a program behaves oddly at every launch, removes every standing priority rule w0a created and any rule, whichever tool wrote it, that starts a program at High priority, with the I/O priority stored beside it. A rule another tool set at a lower level stays.
- Type
oncelikinto the search box - Press the button on the Game and app priorities card
Display and video
If video playback flickers or uses too much GPU, or 'Connect to a wireless display' disappeared, restores multi-plane overlay and Miracast to Windows defaults.
- Type
ekraninto the search box - Press the button on the Display and video card
Auto HDR
If some games no longer get HDR on an HDR display, removes the per-game Auto HDR override so games follow the global Windows setting again.
- Type
hdrinto the search box - Press the button on the Auto HDR card
Which GPU a game runs on
If a game should stop being forced onto the high-performance graphics card, this removes the “high performance” GPU preference from every app that has one — whether w0a wrote it or it was chosen in Settings — and lets Windows decide again. A power-saving preference you set yourself in Settings is left alone.
- Type
oyuninto the search box - Press the button on the Which GPU a game runs on card
NVIDIA profile
If CS2 shows tearing, in-game VSync is ignored, or the GPU stays at high clocks even when idle, removes the NVIDIA driver profile settings this app wrote, restoring driver defaults.
When w0a writes that profile it sets V-Sync off and the G-Sync/FreeSync setting to fixed refresh for cs2.exe, without asking: a competitive profile runs at a fixed refresh rate, and whoever wants variable refresh for CS2 turns it back on in the NVIDIA panel. Running this card removes the written profile, so on a VRR monitor the behaviour you see in CS2 returns to the driver default; that is the card working, not a new problem.
- Type
nvidiainto the search box - Press the button on the NVIDIA profile card
GPU crash recovery
If the machine never recovers when the GPU stalls (no picture, no cursor, no input), or short black screens became long freezes, restores the GPU recovery settings to Windows defaults. If you raised these timeouts deliberately for long GPU compute jobs, this card removes that too.
If the driver reset happened while w0a's own GPU tuner was running, you do not need this card for that: a tuning run that sees a driver reset (TDR) reverts its own settings and does not count as completed. A successful run is applied and recorded straight away — there is no timer asking you to confirm. What answers a freeze is the startup guard instead: a session that dies with an offset live comes back at stock with "apply at startup" switched off, and Reset puts stock values back at any time.
- Type
donmainto the search box - Press the button on the GPU crash recovery card
Memory integrity back on
Turns Windows' memory integrity (core isolation) back on after it was switched off for frames. Use it if an anti-cheat now refuses to start a match, if Windows Security shows a warning, or if you simply want the protection back. Takes effect after a restart; if a driver on this machine is incompatible Windows will say so instead of enabling it.
The card writes Enabled under HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\DeviceGuard\Scenarios\HypervisorEnforcedCodeIntegrity as 1 — exactly what the Windows Security toggle writes. It only takes effect after a restart. If it is still off afterwards, Windows found a driver that does not support memory integrity; Windows Security names that driver, and until it is replaced or uninstalled the feature cannot be switched on.
- Type
bellekinto the search box - Press the button on the Memory integrity back on card
What the card's answer means
After you press it, the card writes a line underneath. Which line you get decides your next step.
- "Fixed — N setting(s) put back to the Windows default." — this was the broken thing and it has been put back. If the problem continues, see below.
- "Nothing to fix — this was already at the Windows default." — these settings were never changed. Whatever you are seeing has another cause, and pressing this card again will not help.
- "Nothing to fix — this component is not installed on this PC." — the thing this card repairs is not present on this Windows. Your edition may not include it, or it may have been removed earlier.
- "Fixed — N setting(s) restored. Restart the PC for full effect." — the setting is written, but Windows reads it at boot, so the difference shows after a restart. A card only prints this when what it changed genuinely needs one.
- "Fixed — N setting(s) restored. Sign out and back in for full effect." — the cheaper version of the same thing: what reads the setting is the session, so the machine does not have to go down.
- "Another repair is running." — only one card runs at a time, because several of them would undo each other's work. Wait for it to finish and press again.
- "Could not fix — see the error log." — the card did not finish. The reason is in
%LocalAppData%\w0a\errors.log.
If it did not help
If the card said it fixed something and the problem is still there, these settings were not the cause. Write to us — tell us which card you ran and what it printed; the two together are what narrows it down.
Did this page help?
What was missing, or what did not work? We read every one of these.
If this page did not solve it, write to us — say which article you read, and we will fix the article.