NixThis: The ad blocker for Windows itself

NixThis is not another Windows tweaker. It is a filter engine for Windows itself.

Windows has a habit of adding things nobody asked for. Ads, suggestions, a Chat button, Bing in Search, another full-screen "here's what's new" page after an update.

I got tired of looking up what Microsoft calls each of these things, finding the right setting, then doing it all again on the next PC. Most debloaters did not really solve that problem for me either. They gave me 300 checkboxes and expected me to understand all of them.

So I built NixThis. Point at the annoying thing, and it looks for the setting behind it.

Grab the latest build from the Releases page, extract it somewhere you can write to, run NixThis.exe. That's it, it's portable.

Needs Windows 10 or 11 and .NET Framework 4.8.

There are two ways, and you can mix them freely.

1 Click Pick an element, or press Ctrl + Shift + Space from anywhere

2 Move the pointer over the thing that annoys you

3 A green frame means NixThis recognises it. Click it

4 Read what will change, then block it or leave it alone

The click is caught by NixThis, so it does not accidentally activate the button underneath. Windows gives a shortcut to whoever asked for it first, so if another app already owns Ctrl + Shift + Space, the button is the way in.

A grey frame means NixThis does not know that element yet. The sighting is recorded locally so it can become a filter later. Nothing is changed.

Open it with More, and fold it away again with Less.

The list shows everything NixThis currently knows about, including things that are not visible on screen right now. Search it, tick what should go, choose Apply changes. Each row tells you where the item lives and what will actually change.

This is also where installed apps appear. Apps required by Windows are protected. Everything else is shown as a choice, rather than pretending every preinstalled app is automatically "bloat".

Open What you blocked. Registry changes remember their previous value, so Bring it back restores exactly what was there before.

Removed Store apps are the exception. Windows offers no real undo for an uninstall, so NixThis opens the matching Microsoft Store page instead.

What NixThis actually changes Most filters write one documented or well-known Windows registry value. NixThis does not patch system files, disable random services, or run a giant mystery script behind an "Optimize" button.

Some machine-wide settings need administrator rights. NixThis first tries the change normally. If Windows refuses it, the app explains why and can restart itself with administrator rights.

Preinstalled apps are removed through Windows PowerShell. A protected package list prevents core components such as the Store, App Installer and Windows runtimes from being offered for removal.

The picker combines a global mouse hook with Windows UI Automation. While the pointer moves, NixThis reads the element under it using AutomationElement.FromPoint and draws a border around the result.

One element is rarely enough to identify a Windows feature reliably, so NixThis also looks at its parents and collects the AutomationId, ClassName, visible name and owning process. That signature is compared with the filter list. Stable IDs are preferred because visible text changes with the Windows language.

The Windows 11 taskbar needs some extra work. It often reports only the taskbar itself, so NixThis walks down the automation tree to find the button that is really under the pointer.

Everything NixThis knows lives in Data/Filters.ini. Each filter describes how an element is recognised, what setting sits behind it, what value blocks it and what should be used to restore it.

The list has its own version number and can grow independently from the app. Pointing at an unknown element writes its signature to Data/Sightings.log. That log stays on the PC and gives me the raw material for adding new filters.

How a filter is written, from a log line to a working section, is explained in Filters.md (deutsch).

The Explain button can ask an AI provider for a short second opinion about a filter. It is optional and stays disabled until you add your own API key in Settings.

Without it, NixThis works completely locally. When you do request an explanation, only the name and technical details of that one setting are sent, never a scan of your PC.

NixThis only blocks things it recognises. Windows changes often, names move around and every new build seems to invent another place for a suggestion. The filter list will need to keep learning.

If something is not recognised, or a filter no longer works on your build, please open an issue and include what you pointed at and which Windows version you are on. That is much more useful than pretending the first release already knows everything.

The first release is out, but the source is not published yet. I built the first working version quickly because I wanted to find out whether this idea was useful outside my own PCs. It is. I am cleaning up and refactoring the code now, so the repository starts with something I can keep maintaining instead of a rushed code dump. The source will follow.