{"id":10368,"date":"2026-06-07T00:41:46","date_gmt":"2026-06-07T00:41:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hexacorn.com\/blog\/?p=10368"},"modified":"2026-06-07T00:41:46","modified_gmt":"2026-06-07T00:41:46","slug":"little-secret-of-msconfig-exe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hexacorn.com\/blog\/2026\/06\/07\/little-secret-of-msconfig-exe\/","title":{"rendered":"little secret of msconfig.exe"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>This post doesn&#8217;t include anything ground breaking, but is just yet another attempt to describe\/document less-known command line arguments of many known, often native to the platform, Windows programs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When you launch msconfig.exe it shows a well-known configuration dialog box:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full is-resized\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hexacorn.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/msconfig1.png\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hexacorn.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/msconfig1.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-10369\" width=\"574\" height=\"387\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.hexacorn.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/msconfig1.png 571w, https:\/\/www.hexacorn.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/msconfig1-300x202.png 300w, https:\/\/www.hexacorn.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/msconfig1-445x300.png 445w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 574px) 100vw, 574px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>It turns out the program accepts less-known command line arguments f.ex.:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li>-\/auto<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hexacorn.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/msconfig_auto.png\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"473\" height=\"227\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hexacorn.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/msconfig_auto.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-10370\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.hexacorn.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/msconfig_auto.png 473w, https:\/\/www.hexacorn.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/msconfig_auto-300x144.png 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 473px) 100vw, 473px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li>-\/basic &#8211; seems to be selecting some GUI controls on UI, but need to explore more<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>-\/commit &lt;number> &#8211; where &lt;number> is a tab on the GUI shown above<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>1 = General\n<ul>\n<li>no action is taken<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>2 = Boot<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hexacorn.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/msconfig_boot.png\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"413\" height=\"172\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hexacorn.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/msconfig_boot.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-10371\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.hexacorn.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/msconfig_boot.png 413w, https:\/\/www.hexacorn.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/msconfig_boot-300x125.png 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 413px) 100vw, 413px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li>3 = Services<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hexacorn.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/msconfig_services.png\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"403\" height=\"172\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hexacorn.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/msconfig_services.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-10372\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.hexacorn.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/msconfig_services.png 403w, https:\/\/www.hexacorn.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/msconfig_services-300x128.png 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 403px) 100vw, 403px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li>4 = Startup<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hexacorn.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/msconfig_startup.png\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"401\" height=\"172\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hexacorn.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/msconfig_startup.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-10373\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.hexacorn.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/msconfig_startup.png 401w, https:\/\/www.hexacorn.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/msconfig_startup-300x129.png 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 401px) 100vw, 401px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>All these options make the program write some Registry settings that don&#8217;t seem to be too important per se.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For example, <\/p>\n\n\n\n<pre class=\"wp-block-preformatted\">msconfig \/commit 2<\/pre>\n\n\n\n<p>writes<\/p>\n\n\n\n<pre class=\"wp-block-preformatted\">HKLM\\SOFTWARE\\Microsoft\\Shared Tools\\MSConfig\\state\\bootini = 0<\/pre>\n\n\n\n<p>to Registry. It&#8217;s not really that interesting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Still, worth documenting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This post doesn&#8217;t include anything ground breaking, but is just yet another attempt to describe\/document less-known command line arguments of many known, often native to the platform, Windows programs. When you launch msconfig.exe it shows a well-known configuration dialog box: &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hexacorn.com\/blog\/2026\/06\/07\/little-secret-of-msconfig-exe\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[126],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hexacorn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10368"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hexacorn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hexacorn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hexacorn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hexacorn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10368"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.hexacorn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10368\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10380,"href":"https:\/\/www.hexacorn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10368\/revisions\/10380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hexacorn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hexacorn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hexacorn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}