How to Make Windows 11 Faster: 12 Settings That Actually Work (2026)

1. Disable startup programs (biggest single win)

Every app you install wants to launch at boot: Spotify, Discord, Zoom, OneDrive, Adobe Updater, Steam, Teams. After a year or two of installing software, 15–25 programs may all be racing to load the moment Windows signs you in — competing for CPU, RAM, and disk simultaneously.

How to do it:

1. Press Ctrl + Shift + Esc to open Task Manager
2. Click the Startup apps tab (Windows 11) or Startup tab (Windows 10)
3. Click the Startup impact column to sort by impact — High impact items at the top
4. Right-click each High-impact app you don't need at boot and select Disable

Safe to disable: Spotify, Discord, Steam, Adobe Updater, Epic Games Launcher, OneDrive (if you don't use cloud sync), browser update helpers, printer software.

Never disable: Your antivirus, GPU drivers (NVIDIA, AMD, Intel), audio drivers (Realtek, Sound Blaster), or touchpad/keyboard drivers on laptops.

Result: boot time drops by 30–60% on most machines. RAM usage at idle drops by 500 MB–2 GB. This is the single most impactful fix for a slow Windows 11 PC.

2. Turn off visual effects for best performance

Windows 11 renders shadows, fade animations, smooth-scroll effects, and Aero Peek on every window. On a modern machine with a dedicated GPU this is nearly free. On integrated graphics with 8 GB RAM it consumes measurable CPU and memory continuously.

How to do it:

1. Press Win + R, type sysdm.cpl, press Enter
2. Click the Advanced tab, then Settings under Performance
3. Select Adjust for best performance to disable all effects, or Custom to selectively disable
4. If using Custom, keep Smooth edges of screen fonts checked — everything else can be unchecked
5. Click OK and Apply

On laptops with 8 GB RAM this often produces the most immediately visible improvement — the UI feels snappier within seconds of applying the change.

3. Disable transparency and animations in Settings

Windows 11's frosted-glass transparency on the taskbar and Start menu is rendered in real time using GPU resources. The Accessibility settings offer a faster path to disable it than Performance Options.

How to do it:

1. Open Settings → Accessibility → Visual effects
2. Toggle Transparency effects to Off
3. Toggle Animation effects to Off

These two toggles are separate from the Performance Options dialog and specifically target the Windows 11 shell elements. Both are safe and instant — toggle them back at any time.

4. Switch to High Performance or Balanced power plan

Windows defaults to the Balanced power plan, which throttles CPU frequency when demand is low to conserve battery. On a desktop this makes no sense. On a laptop plugged in, it's an unnecessary drag on performance.

How to do it:

1. Press Win + R, type powercfg.cpl, press Enter
2. Select High performance from the list (click "Show additional plans" if it's hidden)
3. On laptops: use Balanced on battery, High performance when plugged in

On desktops and plugged-in laptops, this can shave 1–3 seconds off app launch times and reduce stutter during CPU-intensive tasks like video calls or compiling code.

5. Free disk space with Storage Sense and cleanup

Windows 11 needs free space on the C: drive for virtual memory, temporary files, update staging, and system restore. Below 10% free, performance degrades. Below 5%, the system can become unstable.

How to do it:

1. Open Settings → System → Storage
2. Click Cleanup recommendations — Windows will show exactly how much can be freed and from where
3. Enable Storage Sense and configure it to run automatically
4. For deeper cleanup: press Win + R, type cleanmgr, run it on C:, then click Clean up system files

Old Windows Update files alone can take 5–15 GB. It's common to recover 10–20 GB on a PC that has never had Disk Cleanup run on system files. See our full guide on how to free up disk space in Windows safely.

6. Fix 100% disk usage — the most common hidden bottleneck

If Task Manager shows your disk at 100% even when idle, every read and write on your machine is stalled in a queue. This is extremely common on PCs with spinning hard drives (HDDs) and also occurs on SSDs when specific services run out of control.

How to diagnose: Open Task Manager → click the Disk column header to sort by disk usage. The culprit is usually one of: SysMain (Superfetch), Windows Search indexing, antivirus scan, or a failing drive.

Fix SysMain:

1. Press Win + R, type services.msc
2. Find SysMain, double-click it, set Startup type to Disabled, click Stop
3. Restart and check if disk usage drops

If you still have an HDD, upgrading to an SSD is the single most impactful hardware upgrade possible — typically a 5–10x improvement in disk speed. See our detailed guide on fixing 100% disk usage in Windows.

7. Update GPU and chipset drivers (the right way)

Windows Update installs generic Microsoft drivers, which are often months behind the manufacturer's latest release. Outdated GPU drivers cause stutter and visual glitches. Outdated chipset or NVMe drivers cause high disk latency and slow boot.

How to update drivers properly:

• GPU (NVIDIA): Download GeForce Experience or go to nvidia.com/drivers and select your card
• GPU (AMD): Download AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition from amd.com/support
• Intel integrated graphics: Use Intel Driver & Support Assistant from intel.com
• Chipset and other drivers: Go to your PC manufacturer's support site (Dell, HP, Lenovo, etc.) and enter your model number

Check Device Manager (right-click Start → Device Manager) for yellow warning triangles — any device with a warning has a driver problem that needs attention.

8. Disable unnecessary background services

Windows runs hundreds of background services. Some are essential. Many are not — update checkers, telemetry reporters, crash loggers installed by software you barely use. Together they can consume 10–20% of CPU and 1–2 GB of RAM at idle on a typical machine.

How to find and stop problem services:

1. Open Task Manager → Details tab, sort by CPU
2. Right-click a suspicious process → Search online to identify it
3. If it's a third-party service you don't need: open services.msc, find the service, and set it to Manual or Disabled

Common safe disables on most machines:

• SysMain (if on SSD with ample RAM) — Disabled
• Windows Search (if you don't use the search bar) — Manual
• Print Spooler (if you have no printer) — Disabled
• Remote Registry — Disabled
• Fax — Disabled

Never disable: Windows Update, Windows Defender, DCOM Server, Remote Procedure Call, or any service with "Audio" in the name.

9. Scan for malware — especially crypto miners

Modern malware is designed to be invisible. You won't see a warning — instead you'll notice unexplained CPU usage, the fan running at full speed, and degraded performance across everything. Cryptocurrency miners are particularly common on machines that have downloaded cracked software or suspicious browser extensions.

How to scan:

1. Open Windows Security (search for it in Start)
2. Go to Virus & threat protection → Scan options
3. Select Full scan and run it (takes 20–60 minutes)
4. For a second opinion: download Malwarebytes (free scan) and run alongside Windows Defender

After a successful scan and removal, restart. CPU and disk usage typically drop immediately and noticeably.

10. Manage Windows Update — stop it from running at the wrong time

Windows Update downloads and installs updates in the background, which can pin your disk and CPU at 100% for 30–60 minutes. The fix isn't to disable updates (that's a security risk) — it's to schedule them so they run when you're not using the PC.

How to schedule updates:

1. Open Settings → Windows Update → Advanced options
2. Under Active hours, set the time window when you use the PC (e.g., 8 AM – 11 PM)
3. Windows will defer restart and active downloads to outside that window
4. If an update is currently running and you need performance now: Settings → Windows Update → Pause updates for 1 week

Also check Delivery Optimization (Settings → Windows Update → Advanced options → Delivery Optimization). If "Allow downloads from other PCs" is on, Windows may be using your connection and disk to upload updates to other machines on your network. This is safe to leave on, but turn off "PCs on the internet" if your connection is limited.

11. Run SFC and DISM to repair corrupted system files

Corrupted Windows system files cause unpredictable slowness, crashes, and errors. This is more common after a failed update, an unclean shutdown, or on aging drives. SFC (System File Checker) and DISM (Deployment Image Servicing) together can detect and repair these without reinstalling Windows.

How to run:

1. Right-click Start → Terminal (Admin) or Command Prompt (Admin)
2. Run: DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth — wait for it to complete (5–15 minutes)
3. Then run: sfc /scannow — this verifies and repairs core system files
4. Restart when both complete

DISM downloads a clean image from Windows Update to compare against. Run it first so SFC has a clean reference to work from. If SFC reports "Windows Resource Protection found corrupt files and repaired them," you've solved a problem that no other fix would have caught.

12. Run an AI scan to find what you missed

If you've worked through the list above and Windows 11 still feels slow, there's a specific reason — and it's something that requires reading your actual system state to identify. Generic guides can tell you to "disable startup apps," but they can't tell you which of your 14 startup apps is consuming the most memory, or that the background service called HPNetworkCommunicatorCom.exe is using 18% CPU on your specific HP machine.

PC-Care.ai's free AI scan reads your startup programs, running services, driver versions, and disk health — and tells you specifically what to fix on your machine. It runs locally (nothing is uploaded), takes under 2 minutes, and gives plain-English steps rather than a list of registry entries.

It's particularly useful if you've tried everything in this guide and performance still hasn't improved — the AI often finds the one remaining cause that generic advice misses.

Frequently asked questions