When your PC is sluggish, adjusting a few settings can help. If you don’t know what’s under the hood of the Windows 11 OS, I’m sharing some tips that work. These hidden Windows 11 settings give PCs an instant speed boost with minimal effort.
Disable Startup Apps
It might sound really basic, but when you have a lot of apps launching at startup, this can really bog down your PC’s boot-up speed. You might not realize specific apps somehow made it to your startup list. Many times, I install a new program and don’t realize it’s on my startup list until weeks have passed since the installation. You can mitigate this if you catch the setting during a program’s installation (often, there’s a tiny little checkbox you have to uncheck), but they’re easy to miss.
Some of the most popular apps for your PC fall under this sneaky list, including Spotify, Zoom, Steam, Slack, Apple Music, and Discord.
Luckily, even if you miss those pesky checkboxes, it’s easy to disable your startup apps in Windows 11.
To do so, go to your PC’s Settings page. Once you’re there, click on “Apps.” Then, scroll down and select “Startup” from the list.
The Startup page will show you every program currently toggled on as a startup application. There, you can toggle off apps you don’t want to launch at startup.
You can also find a more comprehensive page of startup apps by hitting Control+Alt+Delete on your keyboard and launching the Task Manager. Then, click the menu option labeled “Startup apps.” Right-click to enable or disable apps from that list.
I only leave the essentials on for startup, such as my cloud storage service. I’ve disabled anything I don’t need at launch, like Spotify. When you make this small change, as I did, it can significantly boost your boot-up times.
Enable Storage Sense
There’s nothing that slows down a PC like running low on space. If your main drive completely fills up, your PC will regularly slow down to a crawl and likely freeze intermittently. If your drive becomes too full (and you frequently need to uninstall programs or move files to the cloud), there’s a setting tucked away in Windows 11 that can help clear some space.
Note:
If you have a small boot drive (like a 128GB SSD), Storage Sense may not be very helpful. That’s because you already don’t have a ton of space to work with. The best solution in this case is to move as many large files as possible to an external hard drive.
People who have a mid-sized SSD or HDD (something like a 256GB to 1TB drive) will notice a more significant difference when utilizing Storage Sense. You may also benefit if you have a single drive system.
When used, Storage Sense automatically clears excess data you don’t need on your drive, such as cache data, temporary files, old installation files from Windows updates, and items that have been in your Recycle Bin for an extended period. You can also adjust its settings to delete specific data you don’t want, such as items in your Downloads folder.
To turn it on, head to your Settings and select “System.” On the System page, click on the “Storage” option. Once you’re on the Storage page, choose “Storage Sense.”
The Storage Sense page offers the option to toggle the setting on, allowing you to customize your settings to meet your specific needs. Custom settings exist for how often it runs and what it deletes according to a schedule.
Whether you set Storage Sense to only run when your drive gets low on storage or more regularly, you won’t have to think about clearing space.
Enable Fast Startup
I enabled fast startup on my PC, as it helps reduce the time it takes from booting up to starting my workday. This is especially helpful if your computer seems to take forever to boot up. This setting enables a quicker startup time by allowing your PC to skip reloading everything from scratch. Instead, it picks up where it left off by saving a small system file that speeds up the startup process. This setting is basically a hybrid between completely shutting down your PC and leaving it in Sleep mode.
Note:
Most people will notice a big difference in boot times when using this setting, and it typically doesn’t affect your PC’s performance. However, there are instances when this setting may not be right for you. It may interfere with a dual-boot system (such as when using Linux) or with Wake-on-LAN. One additional note is that you may need to turn off or bypass this setting by restarting your computer for updates to take effect fully.
To turn this on, first open the Control Panel. Under the Control Panel menu, click on “Hardware and Sound.” Next, select the “Power Options” category.
Select the option “Choose what the power buttons do” for the left-hand side. Some people may find “Turn on fast startup” already toggled on. If you don’t (or simply want to adjust all your power settings for more control), click the “Change settings that are currently unavailable” button toward the top of the page.
Finally, toggle on “Turn on fast startup” and you’re done.
Turn Off Transparency Effects
If you’re experiencing slower computer performance, consider turning off “Transparency effects” in Windows 11. This setting primarily enhances the visual appearance of your Windows interface by adding blur and transparency to the Start menu, Taskbar, borders, title bars, and menus.
In other words, this setting makes Windows 11 OS look cooler, but it can also take up some of your PC’s GPU resources if you don’t have a lot left to go around. If you’ve bogged your computer with resource-heavy programs and things are too slow, turning off this setting can help speed things up a bit. However, turning this setting off is likely to have the most significant impact if you’re running Windows 11 on an older PC or a system with a slow integrated GPU.
Turning these effects on or off won’t have any impact on other graphically-demanding programs you run, such as games, video editors, or Photoshop. But doing so can help your OS feel snappier.
To turn off transparency, start on your “Settings” page. Then, select the “Personalization” category from the left side menu. From there, click on the “Colors” option on the “Personalization” page.
Toggle off “Transparency effects” to disable them.
It might sound really basic, but when you have a lot of apps launching at startup, this can really bog down your PC’s boot-up speed. You might not realize specific apps somehow made it to your startup list. Many times, I install a new program and don’t realize it’s on my startup list until weeks have passed since the installation. You can mitigate this if you catch the setting during a program’s installation (often, there’s a tiny little checkbox you have to uncheck), but they’re easy to miss.
Some of the most popular apps for your PC fall under this sneaky list, including Spotify, Zoom, Steam, Slack, Apple Music, and Discord.
Luckily, even if you miss those pesky checkboxes, it’s easy to disable your startup apps in Windows 11.
To do so, go to your PC’s Settings page. Once you’re there, click on “Apps.” Then, scroll down and select “Startup” from the list.
The Startup page will show you every program currently toggled on as a startup application. There, you can toggle off apps you don’t want to launch at startup.
You can also find a more comprehensive page of startup apps by hitting Control+Alt+Delete on your keyboard and launching the Task Manager. Then, click the menu option labeled “Startup apps.” Right-click to enable or disable apps from that list.
I only leave the essentials on for startup, such as my cloud storage service. I’ve disabled anything I don’t need at launch, like Spotify. When you make this small change, as I did, it can significantly boost your boot-up times.
Enable Storage Sense
There’s nothing that slows down a PC like running low on space. If your main drive completely fills up, your PC will regularly slow down to a crawl and likely freeze intermittently. If your drive becomes too full (and you frequently need to uninstall programs or move files to the cloud), there’s a setting tucked away in Windows 11 that can help clear some space.
If you have a small boot drive (like a 128GB SSD), Storage Sense may not be very helpful. That’s because you already don’t have a ton of space to work with. The best solution in this case is to move as many large files as possible to an external hard drive.
People who have a mid-sized SSD or HDD (something like a 256GB to 1TB drive) will notice a more significant difference when utilizing Storage Sense. You may also benefit if you have a single drive system.
When used, Storage Sense automatically clears excess data you don’t need on your drive, such as cache data, temporary files, old installation files from Windows updates, and items that have been in your Recycle Bin for an extended period. You can also adjust its settings to delete specific data you don’t want, such as items in your Downloads folder.
To turn it on, head to your Settings and select “System.” On the System page, click on the “Storage” option. Once you’re on the Storage page, choose “Storage Sense.”
The Storage Sense page offers the option to toggle the setting on, allowing you to customize your settings to meet your specific needs. Custom settings exist for how often it runs and what it deletes according to a schedule.
Whether you set Storage Sense to only run when your drive gets low on storage or more regularly, you won’t have to think about clearing space.
Enable Fast Startup
I enabled fast startup on my PC, as it helps reduce the time it takes from booting up to starting my workday. This is especially helpful if your computer seems to take forever to boot up. This setting enables a quicker startup time by allowing your PC to skip reloading everything from scratch. Instead, it picks up where it left off by saving a small system file that speeds up the startup process. This setting is basically a hybrid between completely shutting down your PC and leaving it in Sleep mode.
Most people will notice a big difference in boot times when using this setting, and it typically doesn’t affect your PC’s performance. However, there are instances when this setting may not be right for you. It may interfere with a dual-boot system (such as when using Linux) or with Wake-on-LAN. One additional note is that you may need to turn off or bypass this setting by restarting your computer for updates to take effect fully.
To turn this on, first open the Control Panel. Under the Control Panel menu, click on “Hardware and Sound.” Next, select the “Power Options” category.
Select the option “Choose what the power buttons do” for the left-hand side. Some people may find “Turn on fast startup” already toggled on. If you don’t (or simply want to adjust all your power settings for more control), click the “Change settings that are currently unavailable” button toward the top of the page.
Finally, toggle on “Turn on fast startup” and you’re done.
Turn Off Transparency Effects
If you’re experiencing slower computer performance, consider turning off “Transparency effects” in Windows 11. This setting primarily enhances the visual appearance of your Windows interface by adding blur and transparency to the Start menu, Taskbar, borders, title bars, and menus.
In other words, this setting makes Windows 11 OS look cooler, but it can also take up some of your PC’s GPU resources if you don’t have a lot left to go around. If you’ve bogged your computer with resource-heavy programs and things are too slow, turning off this setting can help speed things up a bit. However, turning this setting off is likely to have the most significant impact if you’re running Windows 11 on an older PC or a system with a slow integrated GPU.
Turning these effects on or off won’t have any impact on other graphically-demanding programs you run, such as games, video editors, or Photoshop. But doing so can help your OS feel snappier.
To turn off transparency, start on your “Settings” page. Then, select the “Personalization” category from the left side menu. From there, click on the “Colors” option on the “Personalization” page.
Toggle off “Transparency effects” to disable them.
Manage Virtual Memory (Pagefile Size)
To ensure your computer keeps running smoothly in as many circumstances as possible, Windows combines your PC’s RAM and its virtual memory. Your virtual memory (which is a file on your drive called pagefile) works like a backup to your RAM, kicking in to take some of the load off your RAM whenever your PC is running low on physical memory. When you’re multitasking on your PC and run out of RAM, your PC employs the pagefile to take some of that data load. This, in theory, prevents your PC from running into slowdowns or freezes.
You can actually increase your virtual memory in your settings, which is a helpful tool if you find your PC regularly maxing out on RAM and slowing down. While this won’t necessarily improve your PC’s speed directly, it will help by preventing lag or freezes when you run resource-intensive programs. This will speed up your work, as multitasking lag or a complete freeze might lead to regular restarts.
To manage this setting, you need to go to your PC’s Settings and select the “System” option from the left-side menu. Next, scroll down to the end of the “System” page to click “About.”
On the “About” page, locate and select the tab labeled “Advanced system settings,” which is underneath your PC’s device specifications. This will open the “Advanced system settings” window.
In this window, click “Settings” in the “Performance” box.
Click the second tab labeled “Advanced.” Select “Change” in the “Virtual memory” box to manage your pagefile.
You’ll see an option to let Windows automatically manage it, but you can also uncheck this box to specify a custom size.
Note:
Many recommend letting Windows automatically manage your pagefile size; however, if you need to set a custom value for your PC, you can test what works best for you. If you regularly have a heavy workload, engage in content creation such as video editing, or work with large datasets, it may be worthwhile to try. If you notice a slowdown, you may need to adjust the settings, as your PC might be relying too heavily on your pagefile over its RAM.
On the other hand, if you don’t want to adjust your pagefile size, you may want to consider upgrading your PC’s RAM (if possible). If neither of those scenarios works because your PC has soldered memory, focus on trying to clear background processes and applying the other tips above for a speed boost.
After you adjust some of these settings, you might be surprised at how much smoother your PC operates. When I was using a slower laptop, I could’ve used some of these tips instead of just regularly uninstalling programs to make space. I use many of these options to make my current PC function even smoother than it already does.
You’ll find some of these performance boosters buried in menu after menu in Windows 11, but once you know where they are, you’ll reclaim some of that precious PC speed in no time. The only thing you have to lose is a few minutes of your time, and you might gain a lot of that back with faster startup times and a smoother, faster workflow.
Source: By Cianna Garrison howtogeek.com
