Master Tutorial to Make Windows 11 Super Fast on Slow Devices

If you are using Windows 11 in your computer system and you feel that it’s running slower on your machine, this tutorial will help you in improving Windows 11 performance and making it faster on your computer device.

I have received lots of emails from many readers asking similar questions about making Windows 11 faster. Some of them are as following:

• Hi VG, I’m facing lags and other issues while playing games in my Windows 11 PC. I never faced these issues in Windows 10. How can I make Windows 11 faster for gaming?
• VG, My Windows 11 laptop is starting very slow. Is there any way to make Windows 11 boot faster?

After receiving many emails, I decided to write this tutorial which will help you in making Windows 11 super fast.

Whenever a new version of Windows operating system is released, it comes with higher hardware requirements and if you upgrade your old Windows device to new Windows version, you might feel that the new version of Windows is running little bit slower than previous version.

Same thing might happen with Windows 11 operating system. If you were using Windows 10 or older versions of Windows in your computer system and you installed or upgraded this device to latest Windows 11 operating system, you might notice that Windows 11 in your computer is not as faster as previous Windows version. It happens because Windows 11 requires latest hardware specifications and if you try to install and use Windows 11 on old hardware devices, you might not enjoy the performance benefits of Windows 11 which have been developed for high-end devices.

Related: Windows 11 System Requirements or Hardware Specifications

Similarly if you forcefully install Windows 11 on an incompatible i.e. unsupported device which doesn’t meet hardware requirements, Windows 11 will run very slow on the device.

Related: [FAQ] Installing Windows 11 on Unsupported Hardware Devices

Don’t worry! In this exclusive article, we are going to share many tips and tricks which will help you in improving your Windows 11 device performance and make Windows 11 run faster even if your computer system is old or doesn’t contain latest hardware.

If you also want to speed up Windows 11 in your device and make it super fast, follow these simple steps:

STEP 1: Disable or Turn Off Unnecessary Animations and Visual Effects

Similar to previous Windows versions, Windows 11 also comes with lots of eye candy effects such as new animations and transitions effects which can be seen while minimizing/maximizing windows, in Taskbar, menus, etc. You’ll also notice shadow effects on program windows and mouse pointers.

Although these effects and animations look attractive and some people might like these effects but remember these animations and shadow effects consume CPU resources and memory. So you can save some system resources by turning off these effects which will directly help you in improving performance of your Windows 11 device.

Following steps will help you in disabling unwanted animations and shadow effects in Windows 11:

1. Press Win+R keys together to launch RUN dialog box. Now type sysdm.cpl and press Enter. It’ll open classic System Properties window.

Related: Add Classic System Properties Option in My Computer Context Menu

2. Now go to Advanced tab and click on Settings button present under Performance section.

3. It’ll open another window. Now uncheck or disable following animations and other UI effects:

• Animate controls and elements inside windows
• Animate windows when minimizing and maximizing (IMP read before disabling this option)
• Animations in the taskbar
• Fade or slide menus into view
• Fade or slide ToolTips into view
• Fade out menu items after clicking
• Save taskbar thumbnail previews
• Show shadows under mouse pointer
• Show shadows under windows (More details)
• Show translucent selection rectangle
• Slide open combo boxes
• Smooth-scroll list boxes
• Use drop shadows for icon labels on the desktop

4. Apply the changes and close settings window.

It’ll immediately disable and remove unnecessary animations and UI effects in your device and you should notice some improvements while using your Windows 11 device. All UI elements such as menus, program windows, etc should appear faster now.

STEP 2: Disable Glass Transparency Effects (Including All Animations)

Windows 11 comes with new Fluent design UI which features acrylic material to provide translucent blur and glass transparency effects to the end user. You may notice the transparency and glass effects in Start Menu, Taskbar, Action Center, context menus, etc.

If you don’t care about looks, you can turn off these transparency effects to improve Windows 11 performance.

You can disable transparency effects using any of following 2 methods:

METHOD 1: Disable Transparency Effects Using Accessibility Settings

1. Open Settings app from Start Menu. Alternatively, you can press WIN+I keys together to open Settings directly.

2. Now click on “Accessibility” section or tab present in left-sidebar.

3. In right-side pane, click on “Visual Effects” section.

4. On the next page, disable “Transparency effects” option by setting the toggle button to OFF.

PS: You can also disable “Animation effects” option given on the same page to remove all kind of animations and UI effects in your Windows 11 device. It’ll disable all the animations and shadow effects which we discussed in STEP 1. So it’s another way to turn off animations and shadow effects in Windows 11.

METHOD 2: Disable Transparency Effects Using Personalization Settings

1. Open Settings app from Start Menu or by pressing WIN+I hotkey.

2. Now click on “Personalization” section or tab present in left-sidebar.

3. In right-side pane, click on “Colors” section.

4. On the next page, disable “Transparency effects” option by setting the toggle button to OFF.

It’ll immediately disable all transparency and glass blur effects in Windows 11 UI.

STEP 3: Disable Unnecessary Features in Folder Options

You can also turn off following features using Folder Options in Windows 11 to speed up your device:

1. Open This PC or File Explorer and click on 3-dots (…) menu button showing at the end on the toolbar. Now click on “Options” to open Folder Options window.

2. Now go to “View” tab and uncheck following options:

• Display file size information in folder tips
• Hide extensions for known file types
• Hide folder merge conflicts (More info)
• Show encrypted or compressed NTFS files in color
• Show pop-up description for folder and desktop items
• Show preview handlers in preview pane
• Show sync provider notifications

3. Apply the changes and close Folder Options window.

STEP 4: Disable or Remove Unwanted Programs from Windows 11 Startup

Windows 11 comes with lots of bundled programs and tools such as Microsoft Teams, Cortana, Windows Terminal, OneDrive, Windows Security Notification Tool, etc. All these built-in apps and programs automatically start with Windows 11 which means as soon as you switch on your computer system and Windows 11 starts loading, all these programs also launch on startup. These programs keep running in background and consume system resources.

Similarly when you install 3rd party software in your system, some software programs might also add their entries in Windows startup manager and may launch with Windows without your knowledge.

You can disable such kind of unwanted software from startup which will decrease Windows loading or booting time and will definitely improve your Windows 11 computer performance.

PS: Disabling or removing a program from Windows startup will NOT uninstall or remove it from your system. You can use the program any time. It’ll just disable the program from automatically running at startup.

You can disable unwanted programs from startup using Task Manager or Settings app. Just launch Task Manager by pressing Ctrl+Shift+Esc keys together, go to Startup tab and set desired programs to Disabled as shown in following screenshot:

Following tutorial contains full step-by-step instructions to help you in disabling unnecessary programs from Windows startup:

[Tip] How to Manage Startup Apps and Programs in Windows 10 and Windows 11

PS: Although the above mentioned tutorial was written for Windows 10, the same steps will also work in Windows 11 operating system.

After disabling unnecessary programs from startup, your Windows 11 device will boot faster.

STEP 5: Disable Sound Notifications and Alerts

Whenever a certain event occurs in Windows 11, it plays a sound or audio clip to notify the user. Some examples of these events are new email or message notification, reminder, alarm, low battery alert, device connect/disconnect, UAC prompt, etc.

If you don’t need these sound notifications, you can disable them using following steps:

1. Press Win+R keys together to launch RUN dialog box. Now type control and press Enter. It’ll open classic Control Panel window.

Now click on Sound icon.

PS: Alternatively, you can direct open Sound window using mmsys.cpl command in RUN dialog box.

2. Now go to Sounds tab. Here you can click on desired program event which you want to disable and then select (None) from Sounds drop-down list.

You can also select “No Sounds” from “Sound Scheme” drop-down box to disable all sound notifications in your Windows 11 computer.

PS: You can also disable/uncheck “Play Windows Startup sound” option to turn off the sound which is played by Windows 11 at sign-in or login screen.

3. Apply the changes and close Sound window.

STEP 6: Turn Off Unnecessary Windows 11 Services that can be Disabled Safely

Similar to startup programs, Windows also automatically starts lots of system services at startup which keep running in background and taking system resources. Some of these services are unnecessary and can be disabled or set to manual to save system resources and improve overall system performance.

To disable these unnecessary services, we use Services Manager tool which comes preinstalled with all Windows versions.

You can launch Services Manager by using services.msc command in RUN dialog box.

Long time back we posted an exclusive tutorial for Windows 10 to disable unnecessary services. The same guide can also be used in Windows 11 as both OS share same code and features.

Following article will help you in disabling unnecessary services in Windows 11:

[Guide] Windows 10 and Windows 11 Services that can be Disabled Safely

Disabling unnecessary services will help you in making your Windows 11 device boot faster.

STEP 7: Ultimate Registry Tweaks to Speed Up Windows 11

For our readers, we have created an exclusive ready-made Registry script which contains some very useful Registry tweaks to improve Windows 11 performance and make it faster on any computer system.

These Registry tweaks include:

• Making menus and context menus appearing faster on screen
• Automatically ending programs and services upon exit
• Allowing Windows to end programs and services quickly upon exit
• Allowing Windows to end not responding programs and services quickly
• Showing pop-up descriptions (tooltips) faster upon mouse hover
• Disabling regular checking for low disk space
• Disabling checking for non existing programs for broken shortcuts

All these tweaks are absolutely safe to apply.

To implement these tweaks in your Windows 11 device, you just need to download our exclusive Registry script from following link:

It’ll download a ZIP file, extract it using 7-Zip or other file archive utilities and run the extracted Reg file. The script file will ask for confirmation, accept it.

You’ll need to restart your computer to take effects. After restart, you’ll notice major performance improvement in your Windows 11 device.

The ZIP file also contains UNDO file to restore default settings in Windows 11 again.

STEP 8: Restore Classic Right-Click Context Menu in Windows 11

The new redesigned context menu in Windows 11 is a little bit slower in loading compared to old context menus present in Windows 10 and previous Windows versions. Also we need to click on extra “Show more options” option to access legacy context menu options which might annoy users.

Following tutorial will help you in disabling new context menu and restoring classic Windows 10 style context menu in Windows 11:

[Tip] Restore Full Classic Context Menu in Windows 11

Once you restore classic context menu, you’ll no longer need to click on “Show more options” and Windows 11 will always display full classic context menu whenever you right-click in Windows.

STEP 9: Restore Classic File Explorer with Ribbon in Windows 11

Similar to context menu, the new redesigned File Explorer in Windows 11 loads slower and you may notice some delays or lags while navigating between files and folders using keyboard.

Following tutorial will help you in restoring classic Windows 10 style File Explorer with ribbon toolbar in Windows 11:

[Tip] Restore Classic File Explorer with Ribbon Toolbar in Windows 11

Once you enable classic File Explorer in your Windows 11 device, it’ll open faster and you’ll not face any sluggishness.

STEP 10: Restore Classic Taskbar and Start Menu in Windows 11

The new Start Menu and Taskbar in Windows 11 are very restricted and feature limited. Since both Start Menu and Taskbar have been redesigned for Windows 11, it might take some time in implementing all features and functionality.

It’s unclear when Microsoft will start putting missing features in Start Menu and Taskbar but in the meantime you can bring back classic Taskbar and Start Menu in Windows 11 with the help of following tutorials:

[Tip] Restore Windows 10 Classic Taskbar in Windows 11 along with Classic Start Menu

[Tip] Restore Old Classic Start Menu in Windows 11

Classic Start Menu and Taskbar will work faster and will allow you to use all classic features which have been removed from Windows 11.

STEP 11: A Few Other Important Points to Remember

Apart from the above mentioned points, make sure to do following things regularly to keep your computer faster and safe:

• Keep your Windows 11 updated
• Install only necessary software programs (Must Read Guide)
• Use a good antivirus and keep it updated

Guides to Make Other Windows Faster (XP/Vista/7/8/10)

If you are using any other Windows version, we have separate guides to improve other Windows versions performance and make them faster:

Master Tutorial to Make Windows 10 Super Fast

Master Tutorial to Make Windows 8 / 8.1 Super Fast

Master Tutorial to Make Windows 7 Super Fast

Master Tutorial to Make Windows Vista Super Fast

Master Tutorial to Make Windows XP Super Fast