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How do I turn off Windows 10 clipboard, and reinstate traditional (NT XP 7) clipboard?

David Boundy 0 Reputation points
2025-02-18T13:40:36.1633333+00:00

How do I turn off Windows 10 clipboard and reinstate the traditional (Windows NT XP 7) clipboard?  I want to turn Windows 10 clipboard OFF, permanently, and get traditional clipboard working permanently.

I figured out more-or-less workarounds in mid-2024, and got my old applications working. But a Windows update in January or February 2025 seems to have broken it completely. I have followed the suggestions at https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/how-do-i-turn-off-clipboard-it-is-terrible/d70b2c47-e364-49e8-aad4-8f2d8a96ee3d and https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/1352565/clipboard-problem-copy-paste-not-working-on-window    At best, they work only temporarily (either the instructions don't conform to what I see on my screen, or I've followed them and the problem fixes for ten minutes after a reboot, and comes back in a few minutes). I have restarted multiple times per hour, etc etc and I cannot get the clipboard (old or new) to work and stay working. It seems to be completely random--some copy/paste operations work, but most don't reliably.  After I reboot, copy/paste works for a few minutes, then something changes, and it doesn't work until I reboot yet again.

In 25 years, I have had maybe two situations where a multi-entry clipboard would have been nice. If I ever needed it, there's an easy workaround -- just open a temporary doc, paste what I need there, paste the pieces as I need them, and voila I'm all set. In contrast, this new Windows 10 clipboard breaks lots of stuff in existing applications. It's a loser.  I want it GONE.

I do not want the new clipboard. I use older applications extensively that use the old clipboard. I want the old clipboard Permanently.

Are there specific KB's I should back out?

Thank you

Windows for business | Windows Client for IT Pros | Devices and deployment | Set up, install, or upgrade
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  1. ni6hant 0 Reputation points
    2026-03-29T15:51:09.0033333+00:00

    I don't know how to get the older clipboard to work but here's an alternative anyways:

    It's a pain to get the new clipboard to turn off completely however adding a registry key and restarting system disabled it But the Win+V key couldn't be assigned to another application.

    Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\System

    New D-Word 32 bit Value:

    AllowClipboardHistory

    and set it's value to 0.Then I just installed a third-party clipboard, in my case: ArsClip (which isn't on GitHub but the source code is included with the file for security audits if you want to).

    Workaround to get the Win+V to work with ArsClip:

    Install PowerToys and inside it remap the shortcut Win+V to something very obscure that will never use like Ctrl+Alt+Shift+End and in ArsClip add this obscure shortcut to open it.

    This way the Win+V opens up ArsClip.

    P.S: Yes, it's not really the perfect solution as you asked for getting the original Clipboard back from the golden days but I don't know how to get that working and I won't look into it as ArsClip gets the job done and it has a lot more features that I never use already.

    ni6hant

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