Hello everybody!
Watch this video to find out how to optimize Windows 11 and boost computer performance.
The performance of Windows 11 has improved slightly in comparison with Windows 10.
In the new version of its operating system, Microsoft introduced enhancements to memory
and disk management, application priorities and some other things related to CPU and battery
performance.
However, many users - especially those who installed Windows 11 on unsupported devices
- may face performance issues which include lags and regular freezing.
Although there are a few minor problems that still remain in Insider builds, I’d like
to show you several proven methods to make your Windows 11 work faster and boost your
computer’s performance.
Restart and update If your computer tends to freeze, or gets
too slow with the new operating system, the first step to take is to check for updates
and update your Windows if necessary.
Click on the Start menu - Settings - Windows Update - Check for updates, and if there’s
something new on the list, download and install it, and then restart your computer.
Restarting can also help if you experience an occasional problem that seems to slow down
your PC.
Disable startup for some apps To make your operating system boot faster,
disable startup for certain applications, because some of them start together with the
operating system and thus make it boot longer than normal.
To do it for typical Microsoft apps like One Drive, Microsoft Teams, or Edge, open Settings
– Apps – Startup, and turn off every program
you don’t want to start together with Windows.
To disable startup for third-party software, open Task Manager.
Right-click on the Start menu - Task Manager, then click “More details” here and open
the Startup tab, select a program and then click “Disable” below.
Disable animation and visual effects The
main visual differences introduced in the new operating system include smooth animation,
blurring, transparent interface elements and so on.
These novelties in the user interface truly give Windows 11 a brand new look.
But once again, all these nice-looking things come at a price, especially if you’re not
using a dedicated graphics card.
So if you want to configure your Windows 11 for performance rather than appearance, you
can change some options accordingly.
Open Settings - Personalization - Colors.
Turn off “Transparency effects.”
After that, navigate to “Accessibility” tab on the left side panel and then to “Visual
effects” on the right.
Here, turn off “Transparency effects” and “Animation effects.”
After that, click on the Start menu and search for “View advanced system settings.”
In the “System Properties” window that opens, find the section “Performance”
and click on “Settings.”
From this list, select “Adjust for best performance,” then click OK and restart
the computer.
This will reduce the burden of visual effects and your computer will be geared for better
performance.
Change power mode If you have a laptop and you want the best
performance in Windows 11, while you don’t care for how long it’s going to work on
battery, change your power plan.
Open Settings – System – Power & battery.
In the power plan drop-down list, select High Performance.
Configure hard disk defragmentation Over time, pieces of files get scattered all
over the hard disk, and this can also affect your computer’s performance.
This problem can be fixed by giving your hard disk a defragmentation session.
Open Settings – System - Storage – Advanced storage settings
– Drive optimization.
Select a hard disk and click “Optimize.”
There’s one important thing to keep in mind: it’s not recommended to defragment an SSD,
as it will reduce its life cycle.
If “Optimization on schedule” it disabled, click on the “Change settings” button,
check the box for “Run on schedule” and then choose the frequency.
Generally, we believe that setting the schedule option to “Weekly” is the best choice.
The time required for disk defragmentation ranges from a few minutes to several hours
and depends on the capacity of your storage and the degree of its fragmentation.
Change from HDD to SSD and add more system memory
If you are still using a conventional hard disk as the home to your Windows, it’s high
time to consider moving it to a solid-state drive.
You will experience a huge performance boost, and you will be surprised by how quickly Windows
can boot.
These days, we don’t recommend installing an operating system on a hard disk, for any
reason.
And if your computer tends to freeze when you have many programs running at the same
time, it is most likely that you need to add more system memory.
As we all know, the amount of RAM has a serious impact
on
a computer’s speed and performance, and the more you have, the better.
Disable restartable apps To make your work faster and more comfortable,
Windows 11 restarts some background apps after you log in.
If you have a powerful computer, this feature could be something you really enjoy.
On the contrary, you can disable it for older machines and get a performance boost in Windows
11.
Open Settings – Accounts – Sign-in options, find “Additional settings” and turn off
the option “Automatically save my restartable apps.”
Remove what you don’t need If you no longer use some of the programs
which are installed on your computer, it’s time to remove them.
Each of them may have background processes or active automatic update options.
All of these take up your computer’s system memory and processor time and thus make it
work slower than it could.
What is more, they also take away your precious disk space, and leave quite a lot of junk
files in the registry.
So open Settings - Apps - Apps & features - find the things you don’t need anymore,
click on the three dots button and choose to uninstall them.
Clean temporary files Temporary files stored on the system disk
can also make your computer slower than it should be.
To say good bye to them, open Settings - System - Storage - Temporary files; then select what
you want to remove - for example, temporary Internet files and thumbnails, then click
“Remove files.”
Disable notifications and tips To improve your user experience, the operating
system will often show you notifications, advice and recommendations.
Before displaying them, it will scan the computer to see what can be improved - and reduce its
performance while doing that.
To have this feature disabled, open Settings - System - Notifications.
There are two options here: “Offer suggestions on how I can setup my device” and “Get
tips and suggestions when I use Windows.”
Disable both of them.
Disable background apps Additionally, there are applications that
run in the background.
They don’t have a graphical user interface, and unlike your typical apps, such programs
work all the time since you install and configure them.
To turn them off, right-click on the Start menu and open “Apps & features,” select
an application from the list, and click on the three dots button to access “Advanced
options.”
After that, set the background app permission to “Never.”
To close a currently running background application, right-click on the Start button and start
Task Manager; select the application from the list and click “End task.”
Turn VBS off One more thing that you can disable is Virtualization-Based
Security (or VBS for short).
This is a security feature in Windows 11 that protects the operating system from unsafe
code and malware, and it is a part of Hypervisor-Enforced Code Integrity (or HVCI).
However, it can reduce computer performance in games from the moderate 5% to the enormous
25%.
If you’re keen on games and you want to make the most of your rig while playing in
Windows 11, just turn VBS off.
Here’s how you do it: use the search feature to find “Core isolation,” open it and
disable the option “Memory integrity.”
Disable game mode On the other hand, if you don’t play games
at all, you can disable the game mode for good.
It will stop DVR and other background services related to Xbox, and accelerate your computer
a bit more.
Open Settings - Gaming - Game Mode, and turn it off by dragging this slider.
You can also turn off Xbox Game Bar.
Configure virtual memory and paging file For the same purpose, we recommend to configure
your computer’s virtual memory (paging file).
This file should be located on the fastest disk of your computer or in the system partition.
We do not recommend letting the operating system decide on the size of the paging file,
or leaving it dynamic.
Open Settings - System - About - Advanced system settings.
In the window that opens, click on Performance settings - Advanced, and then click “Change”
in the “Virtual memory” section.
Uncheck the box for “Automatically manage paging file size,” choose the drive where
you’d like to keep the paging file, specify its size, click “Set” and OK.
For the virtual memory settings to apply, restart the computer.
Windows Troubleshooter Windows 11 has a special utility that helps
you find and troubleshoot various performance issues.
Search for “Security and Maintenance” and start the automatic maintenance tool - click
“Next” and then “Try troubleshooting as an administrator.”
After the diagnostics is over, it is recommended to restart the computer.
Disable search indexing If your computer has a conventional hard disk,
it can be too slow because of too many operations involving this disk - such as file indexing,
caching, and file search results.
Use the search feature to find and start the “Services” app, then find Windows Search
on the list and turn it off.
Right-click on the service and select Properties - Stop - Apply.
Now restart the computer.
When this service is stopped, search will become slower than usual, but the system performance
should improve.
Update device drivers Immediately after the installation, Windows
11 should work in a fast and stable manner unless some components are out of date or
missing.
We recommend installing new updates as soon as they are available.
Another case involves obsolete drivers: if you haven’t updated them for a long time,
the operating system can’t work properly.
Therefore, it becomes difficult to achieve best performance, and the computer seems to
slow down considerably.
To keep your Windows 11 in a good shape, always make sure that all your drivers are up to
date.
Boot menu timeout If you have several operating systems installed
on your computer, their list is displayed when booting, and the default time for this
is 30 seconds.
To speed up the boot process, you can reduce this timeout or even turn it off.
Open Settings - System - About - Advanced system settings - Startup and Recovery - Settings.
Modify the time or disable this option.
Enable Storage Sense feature The Storage Sense feature lets the operating
system monitor the amount of free disk space and manage it by removing unnecessary files
automatically.
To enable it, open Settings - System - Storage - and turn on “Storage Sense.”
In its additional settings, you can configure cleanup schedules and tell the system what
kind of files you want to remove automatically.
Conclusion Now you know the main factors that cause the
operating system to slow down, and a few tricks that will help your Windows 11 work faster.
If you’d like to add something else, feel free to post a comment below.
That is all for now!
Hopefully, this video was useful.
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Thank you for watching.
Good luck.