[Tip] Speed Up Switching between Desktop and Start Screen By Disabling Start Screen Animation in Windows 8 and Later

The new Start Screen in Windows 8 is a replacement for traditional Start Menu. It shows big tiles of programs in a full screen view similar to Windows Phone OS. You need to click on “Desktop” tile present in Start Screen to switch to Desktop view to access other programs, etc.

To again go to Start Screen, you can move your mouse cursor to bottom left corner of screen and a Start Screen thumbnail will appear. You can click on the thumbnail to go to Start Screen. You can also press “WIN” key to switch between Desktop and Start Screen quickly and easily as mentioned here.

Whenever you switch between Desktop and Start Screen, a nice animation is shown by Windows.

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Hidden_Secret_Animation_Windows_8_Start_Screen.gif

But if you don’t like animations and if you think that animations and other eye candy effects slow down your computer, you can disable this unnecessary Start Screen animation to speed up the switching process.

Today in this tutorial, we’ll tell you a way to disable Start Screen animation in Windows 8 which will speed up the process of switching between Start Screen and Desktop. Once the animation is turned off, the Start Screen or Desktop will be shown immediately without any delay.

So if you want to disable Start Screen animation, follow these simple steps:

1. Press “Win+R” keys together to open RUN dialog box. You can also launch it using the new Win+X menu.

2. Now type sysdm.cpl in run dialog box and press Enter. It’ll open System Properties window.

3. Now go to “Advanced” tab and click on “Settings” button present in “Performance” section.

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4. It’ll open a new window. Uncheck the option “Animate controls and elements inside windows” and apply changes.

Disable_Windows_8_Start_Screen_Animation.png

5. That’s it. It’ll immediately disable Start Screen animation and you’ll be able to switch faster between Start Screen and Desktop.

NOTE: This option will also disable the moving glow animation which is shown in progress bars.

PS: You can also disable other animation related options present in System Properties to improve Windows 8 performance. Check out following exclusive tutorial to learn more about it:

Master Tutorial to Make Windows 8 / 8.1 Super Fast

Published in: Windows 8

About the author: Vishal Gupta (also known as VG) has been awarded with Microsoft MVP (Most Valuable Professional) award. He holds Masters degree in Computer Applications (MCA). He has written several tech articles for popular newspapers and magazines and has also appeared in tech shows on various TV channels.

Comments

NOTE: Older comments have been removed to reduce database overhead.

  1. @VG
    I think ‘Victor Ong’ was referring to this sentence

    NOTE: This option will also disable the moving glow animation which is shown in progress dialog boxes such as file copy, move, etc operations.

    which doesn’t apply to Windows 8 as it has new progress dialog boxes for copying files etc.

  2. ^^ I was talking about the progressbar which is still used by many 3rd party software and many built-in Windows programs to show the process progress. I have modified the line to clear confusion. 🙂

  3. Looks like I found a Google Chrome bug…………….. the GIF image animation does not works correctly in chrome………

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