This site will have limited functionality while we undergo maintenance to improve your experience. If an article doesn't solve your issue and you want to ask a question, we have our support community waiting to help you at @FirefoxSupport on Twitter and/r/firefox on Reddit.

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

Where is the registry entry for Tools->Advanced->General-> Browsing -> Use Hardware Acceleration When Possible

  • 6 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 16 views
  • Last reply by ITGirl

more options

Anyone know if this can be enabled/disabled in the registry and where it would be located?

Tools->Advanced->General-> Browsing -> Use Hardware Acceleration When Possible

Anyone know if this can be enabled/disabled in the registry and where it would be located? Tools->Advanced->General-> Browsing -> Use Hardware Acceleration When Possible

Modified by ITGirl

Chosen solution

So in order to change the preference via a script I found the information that needed to be modified in "about:config", 'thanks cor-el', then ran it in a batch file as follows

Example A - this is run once and appended on to the current file prefs.js, but perhaps this can be left alone.

cd /D "%APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\*.default"

set ffile=%cd%

echo user_pref("layers.acceleration.disabled", true);>>"%ffile%\prefs.js"

set ffile=

cd %windir%

Example B - This is run and creates a new file called user.js or appends to the existing one. This file has higher priority to prefs.js

cd /D "%APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\*.default"

set ffile=%cd%

echo user_pref("layers.acceleration.disabled", true);>>"%ffile%\user.js"

set ffile=

cd %windir%

Example C - this one overwrites user.js each time, by changing the number of '>' it changes from append to overwrite.

cd /D "%APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\*.default"

set ffile=%cd%

echo user_pref("layers.acceleration.disabled", true);>"%ffile%\user.js"

set ffile=

cd %windir%

Read this answer in context 👍 0

All Replies (6)

more options

Enable/Disable this feature in Firefox Options..

more options

I know you can do it there but is there a way to modify it in the registry?

That way it can be run as a script instead.

more options

Don't know about that.. will ask a senior contributor to help you in this matter..

more options

Firefox doesn't use the registry to store such settings, but stores such setting in prefs.js.

The hardware acceleration checkbox controls this pref: layers.acceleration.disabled

more options

Not sure how relevant this is but also note that Flash Player often will try to utilise hardware acceleration, and will give you options for turning this on or off from its own interface. AFAIK flashplayer stores the settings in LSOs (Locally Stored Objects - also known as Flash Cookies)

more options

Chosen Solution

So in order to change the preference via a script I found the information that needed to be modified in "about:config", 'thanks cor-el', then ran it in a batch file as follows

Example A - this is run once and appended on to the current file prefs.js, but perhaps this can be left alone.

cd /D "%APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\*.default"

set ffile=%cd%

echo user_pref("layers.acceleration.disabled", true);>>"%ffile%\prefs.js"

set ffile=

cd %windir%

Example B - This is run and creates a new file called user.js or appends to the existing one. This file has higher priority to prefs.js

cd /D "%APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\*.default"

set ffile=%cd%

echo user_pref("layers.acceleration.disabled", true);>>"%ffile%\user.js"

set ffile=

cd %windir%

Example C - this one overwrites user.js each time, by changing the number of '>' it changes from append to overwrite.

cd /D "%APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\*.default"

set ffile=%cd%

echo user_pref("layers.acceleration.disabled", true);>"%ffile%\user.js"

set ffile=

cd %windir%

Modified by ITGirl