DirectStorage Windows Registry Path

This article provides an overview of the system-wide configuration settings for Microsoft’s DirectStorage API within the Windows Registry. DirectStorage optimizes data throughput for modern NVMe drives, and Windows maintains specific registry values to control global behaviors, driver overrides, and BypassIO capabilities. Below is the exact registry path along with the standard parameters used to manage the API’s global configuration.

DirectStorage Registry Location

The system-wide configuration for the DirectStorage API is located at the following path in the Windows Registry Editor (regedit):

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\DirectStorage

Common Configuration Values

Administrators and developers can create or modify DWORD (32-bit) values within this key to adjust DirectStorage behavior across the operating system:

• DisableBypassIO: Setting this value to 1 disables BypassIO globally, forcing storage requests through the standard Windows I/O stack rather than the optimized DirectStorage low-overhead pathway.
• ForceFileBuffering: Forces OS-level file caching on DirectStorage reads, which is primarily used for testing storage performance against cached scenarios.
• DisableTelemetry: Disables diagnostic and performance telemetry logging specific to the DirectStorage runtime.

How to Access and Modify the Path

1. Press Win + R, type regedit, and press Enter to open the Registry Editor.
2. In the address bar at the top, paste: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\DirectStorage
3. If the DirectStorage key does not exist under Microsoft, right-click the Microsoft folder, select New > Key, and name it DirectStorage.
4. Add or modify the necessary DWORD (32-bit) values to configure system-wide API settings.
5. Restart your system or the target application for the changes to take effect.