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Config files: turning a good setup into a repeatable one

The second time you set up a machine should take fifteen minutes, not an afternoon. Exported configuration is the difference.

By Cesar Josephine April 3, 2026 7 min read Independent · unsponsored

Why bother

The first time you tune a Windows install, the value is the tuned machine. The second time, the value is the twenty minutes you did not spend. Configuration export is what converts a one-off afternoon into a repeatable process, and it is the feature I would miss most if it disappeared tomorrow.

It also turns your setup into something you can review. A file you can open and read is a file you can disagree with six months later.

Exporting a known-good state

  1. Get the machine into the state you want

    Everything applied, restarted at least once, and used normally for a day or two so that anything broken has had a chance to reveal itself.

  2. Export the configuration

    Use the export control in the top bar. You get a single file containing the values of every managed setting, not a diff — which means it is a complete description, not a patch.

  3. Name it so it is still meaningful in a year

    desktop-gaming-2026-04-03.json beats config(2).json by a distance.

  4. Store it somewhere that survives a reinstall

    Not the Desktop of the machine you are about to wipe. Ask me how I know.

Keeping versions that mean something

I keep a small folder with one subfolder per machine, and inside it a handful of dated files. Two of them are permanent: the export taken on first launch, before I changed anything, and the current known-good state. The ones in between get deleted once they are older than the last feature update.

The pre-change export is the important one

The tool writes one automatically on first launch, capturing your settings exactly as Windows shipped them to you. Copy it somewhere safe immediately. It is the closest thing you have to a factory reset for settings, without touching your files or applications.

Because these files are plain structured text, they also diff cleanly. If you are comfortable with version control, a tiny private repository gives you a readable history of every change you have made to your own machines. That is well past what most people need, and it is genuinely useful if you look after computers for a family.

Importing onto a new machine

The import dialog lets you review what will be applied before it applies anything. Do not skip that screen. Two things routinely need adjusting between machines:

  • Power settings. A desktop profile on a laptop will cost you real battery life. I keep separate configs rather than one universal file.
  • App removals. Hardware-specific vendor apps differ from machine to machine, and a removal list from one manufacturer's laptop means little on another's.

After import, restart, then run through the same ten-minute sanity check as after any debloat: print something, join a call, plug in a drive, open the app you use most.

There is a bundled recommended configuration for people who want a single decision instead of a hundred. It is a reasonable, moderate set of changes and it is a fine starting point on a fresh install.

It is a starting point, not an answer

Any one-click preset is someone else's opinion about your machine. Apply it on a fresh install where the cost of being wrong is low, review what it changed, and adjust. On a machine you depend on, walk the settings yourself — the whole argument for this class of tool is that it makes walking them fast.

My own working pattern: apply the recommended config on a fresh install, spend twenty minutes adjusting, export the result as my new baseline, and never apply the preset again on that machine. From then on the file is mine.

Written on my own hardware, with my own money, on my own time. Nobody paid for a mention here. If a page ever does contain a paid placement or an affiliate link, it will say so at the top — see the disclaimer.