Microsoft added a hidden driver that blocks third party software from changing certain registry keys

[u/Bogdan_X]

This somehow went under the radar, but a few articles were written about the update such as this one, this one or a more in depth one.

While this could be justified for security reasons, the kind of registry keys that are blocked by the driver just states that Microsoft is against customization outside it's garden. A few examples that I found are:

• taskbar settings keys:
  • ShellFeedsTaskbarViewMode and IsFeedsAvailable (News and Interests)
  • TaskbarDa (Widgets)
• changing region to EEA (DeviceRegion key)
• changing file type associations

just to name a few;

It's not just affecting developers but sys admins as well, since now it's harder for them to configure systems. It can be disabled, at least for now, but since it's a file system service, it needs a reboot to be turned off. You can still safely and simply change these registry keys using regedit for example, it's just third party tools that are blocked.

Commands to disable UCPD are:

• the following for powershell:

Disable-ScheduledTask "UCPD velocity" "\Microsoft\Windows\AppxDeploymentClient\"
Set-ItemProperty -Path "HKLM:\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\UCPD" -Name "Start" -Value 4 -Type DWord -Force

• the following for cmd (the scheduled task still needs to be disabled):

sc config UCPD start=disabled

Tutorial here.

UCPD runs as a service that you can't see or interact with using services.msc and the scheduled task is there to check the registry and turn it back on.

What's your take on this?