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SophiApp is the next iteration of the Sophia Script project, a PowerShell-based script that allows tweaking Windows 10. It provides a GUI app for fine-tuning and tweaking Windows 10 using a modern UI/UX. SophiApp helps expose myriad Windows 10 settings that may otherwise have no direct configuration in Windows 10 outside of tweaking the registry. It combines these into a useful, intuitive, and easy-to-use GUI application.
A nice feature of SophiApp is that it is fully portable and requires no installation. The only thing you need to do to run SophiApp is download the ZIP file, extract it, and run sophiapp.exe. This feature simplifies the process to start tweaking and configuring Windows settings. The following features are included with SophiApp, among others:
- It shows the actual state of Windows 10 configuration settings in the UI
- You can choose between light and dark themes
- You can change privacy and telemetry settings
- It allows disabling scheduled tasks for diagnostics tracking
- You can set up the UI and personalize it
- You can uninstall OneDrive correctly using the tool
- You can uninstall UWP apps
- It displays the UWP apps using friendly package names
- You can configure Windows security
- You can configure file explorer and context menu "deep" tweaks
Once SophiApp is launched, you will see the app's GUI launch with the various configuration items available for tweaking your Windows 10 installation. Note the following configuration areas in the left pane:
Running the SophiApp from the extracted files 1
Windows 10 personalization
Below, the SophiApp has been toggled to dark mode. Here, we see the personalization configuration. There are many settings to choose from and configure on this settings page. Here are just a few:
- Customizing the "This PC" icon
- Show hidden files, folders, and drives
- Show file name extensions
- Quick access
- Show the Cortana button on the taskbar
- Display the file transfer dialog box
- Many others
SophiApp dark mode and personalization settings 1
On the System Settings configuration page for SophiApp, you can configure many settings, including:
- Enable the Windows 260-character path limit
- Display stop information on the BSoD
- Windows features
- Optional features
- Configured power plan
Viewing the SophiApp system settings configuration 1
On the Start Menu configuration page, SophiApp has the fewest available settings for configuration. However, on this page, you can configure:
- Recently added apps in the Start menu
- Show app suggestions in the Start menu
- Run the Windows PowerShell shortcut from the Start menu as Administrator
Viewing Start Menu configuration settings in SophiApp
Remove preinstalled UWP apps
Out of the box, Windows 10 contains many UWP apps. Many are installed by default or can be installed. SophiApp offers a great way to eliminate many built-in apps before creating a golden image for deployment.
Installing or uninstalling UWP apps using SophiApp 1
Scheduled tasks for system maintenance
On the Scheduled Tasks configuration page, you can use SophiApp to create three different scheduled tasks that provide cleanup capabilities for your PC. These include:
- Windows cleanup
- Clean up the Windows Updates download folder
- Clean up the temporary folder
These clean up various items in Windows 10, including temporary files and Windows Update downloads.
Creating scheduled tasks for cleanup in Windows 10 using SophiApp 1
Security configuration
SophiApp provides a one-stop shop to turn on the advanced sandboxing and hypervisor-assisted security settings found in Windows 10. These settings include:
- Enabling Microsoft Defender Exploit Guard network protection
- Enable detection in Microsoft Defender for potentially unwanted applications and block them
- Include command line in process creation events
- Enable logging for all Windows PowerShell modules
- Windows Sandbox
Tweaking security settings configuration using SophiApp 1
Configure the Explorer context menu
You can control the context menu settings available using SophiApp, including actions for extracting, installing, running as, sharing, and editing options.
Configuring context menu settings using SophiApp
Saving SophiApp Tweaks and Changes
After making your tweaks and configuration changes, SophiApp keeps up with the changes made. You can switch between the different configuration dashboards without saving and then save all the changes in one operation.
Saving SophiApp tweaks and changes 1
Windows 11 support?
You are probably wondering about Windows 11 support. On the official SophiApp GitHub page, under the System Requirements, you will see the following:
- Currently supports Windows 10 2004/20H2/21H1/21H2 x64 for now. It requires the 1151 build or higher. Windows 11 is in the works.
While it appears Windows 11 support isn't quite ready yet, SophiApp will undoubtedly provide a quick and easy tool to customize Windows 11 installations along with Windows 10.
Final notes
Working with SophiApp to customize Windows 10 was easy and intuitive. The app features many popular tweaks and areas of configuration that many Windows 10 users and organizations alike will benefit from.
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The tool can also assist with creating Windows 10 golden images, providing IT admins with a GUI tool to implement tweaks and configuration changes across the board with Windows 10 before converting these to an image for deployment. Windows 11 support has not been introduced yet, but it will be included in a future release of SophiApp.
