Uninstalling w0a

To uninstall w0a, first restore the changes you want reverted on the Backups & Restore page, because removing the application does not revert the Windows settings it changed. Then turn Start with Windows off in Settings, close w0a and delete the w0a.exe you downloaded. There is no installer to run.

Undo first, then uninstall

This is the order that matters, and it is not the obvious one.

Uninstalling w0a removes the application. It does not revert the Windows settings it changed — those are Windows settings, not w0a's files, and an uninstaller that silently rewrote your machine on the way out would be doing something no uninstaller should do.

So if you want the machine back the way it was:

1. Open w0a
2. Go to Backups & Restore
3. Restore the checkpoints you want reverted
4. Then uninstall

If you have already uninstalled and want to undo the changes, install it again, restore, and then uninstall. The undo log lives at %ProgramData%\w0a\backup.json and survives uninstallation for exactly this reason.

Uninstalling

There is no installer, so there is nothing to uninstall in the usual sense. w0a never writes an entry under Settings → Apps → Installed apps, so it is not listed there — and it does not appear on its own Uninstall page either, because that page lists the applications Windows knows about and w0a is not one of them.

Removing it is four steps:

1. In w0a, open Settings and turn Start with Windows off. That deletes the scheduled task — the only thing of w0a that keeps running after you close its window.
2. Close w0a.
3. Delete the w0a.exe you downloaded — and, if you want them gone too, the folders below.
4. If you want nothing left, delete the whole %ProgramData%\w0a folder as well, but only once your changes are reverted: the undo log is in it. Windows asks for administrator approval, because only administrators can change that folder.

What does w0a leave behind?

• %LocalAppData%\w0a\ — the local error log, your saved benchmark runs, the machine fingerprint file. Delete the folder if you want it gone.
• %AppData%\w0a\ — your settings, and nothing else. Kept apart from the folder above because settings are meant to follow you to another PC, while everything in that one describes this one.
• %ProgramData%\w0a\backup.json — the undo log. Deleting it means the changes can no longer be reverted from a backup; the repair cards on the Fix page still work, because they write the Windows default rather than reading a backup.
• %ProgramData%\w0a\backup.json.prev and, next to it, governor.json, herd.json, cpucap.txt, session.jsonl and session.seq — the undo log as it stood before its last save, and the recovery journals w0a uses to put back its own changes after a crash.
• %ProgramData%\w0a\EventLogs\ — if you cleared the Windows event logs on the Logs page, the copies of the Application, System, Security, Setup and Defender logs it saved just before clearing them. The three most recent are kept, and only administrators can open them.
• The w0amax power plan, if you created it on the Power Plans page. It is a Windows power plan, so it stays where Windows keeps power plans; switch back to Balanced or your own plan before uninstalling if you do not want to be left on it.
• The PawnIO driver, if you approved its installation for CPU temperature or RAM timings. It is a separate signed product with its own entry in Windows' installed-apps list, and removing w0a does not remove it.
• %ProgramData%\w0a\bin\w0a.exe — a second copy of the application, made only if you ever turned Start with Windows on. The logon task runs from there rather than from wherever you keep the original, so that moving or deleting the original cannot leave a task pointing at a file somebody else could replace. Turning the setting off deletes the task but leaves this copy; delete the bin folder if you want it gone. Builds before September 2026 kept it in %LocalAppData%\Programs\w0a\ instead.
• HKLM\SOFTWARE\w0a\Machine — a registry cache of the hardware values the machine fingerprint is built from (firmware UUID, board serial number, processor ID). Remove it from an administrator prompt with reg delete HKLM\SOFTWARE\w0a\Machine /f.
• HKLM\SOFTWARE\w0a\State — a sealed date mark that the licence check keeps. It holds no personal data.

No service is ever installed. There is one scheduled task, w0a Autostart, and it exists only if you turned Start with Windows on — it starts w0a elevated at sign-in, which is why it is a task rather than a Startup-tab entry. Turning the setting off removes it, and so does deleting it by hand in Task Scheduler. After that nothing of w0a runs.

Does uninstalling affect your licence?

Uninstalling does not consume or release anything. Your key stays valid for its period, and reinstalling on the same machine activates again with the same key. Changing machines is covered in I changed my PC.

Related

• Undoing what w0a changed
• Cancelling a subscription