Updating to a new major update is always very exciting, but that excitement soon wears off if you find your machine’s performance has taken a hit. Fortunately, there are many things you can try to tune your Windows PC for better performance.

Year after year, Windows has been adding snazzy functionalities to their operating systems, which definitely add up to ease of convenience to the user but can stall some older machines.

Hence, let’s identify what features you can turn off and achieve a good balance between extracting performance and not hurting your ease of convenience.

  • Change Power Settings
  • Disable Background Apps
  • Turn Off Transparency
  • Disable Shadows, Animations, Visual Effects
  • Turn Off Windows Tips and Tricks
  • Clean Up Your System
  • Disable Startup Programs
  • Stop OneDrive Sync
  • Defrag Your Hard Disk
  • Use ReadyBoost
  • Turn Off Enhanced Search
  • Turn Off Search Indexing

So let’s get started from the basics and move towards solutions requiring relatively more complex intervention from your side.

Change Power Settings

Windows operating system offers three ‘Power Plans’, namely – Balanced, Power Saver, and High Performance, to manage your battery life to performance ratio depending on your requirement at the moment.

There can be a possibility that your system is running on the Power Saver plan, and if that’s the case, switching Power Plans can provide you with that instant boost of performance you have been longing for.

To do so, click on the ‘Search’ icon present on the taskbar from the bottom section of your screen.

Now, type ‘Control Panel’ in the search box, and then click on the ‘Control Panel’ app search result.

Then from the Control Panel screen, click the ‘Power Options’ option from the grid of options present on the screen.

After that, you will be able to see all the available Power Plans on the screen. By default, Windows offers three Power Plans.

Power Saver: This option would provide you the most battery life out of your laptop at the expense of performance. Desktop users should never choose this option, as it will only reduce the performance and not save any power.

Balanced: This option is mostly recommended to laptop users when not plugged into a power source. As the name suggests, it provides a good balance between performance and battery life.

High Performance: This option should be the one to go for desktop users or even for laptop users when connected to a power source and requiring every bit of performance to perform CPU-intensive tasks.

Click on the ‘radio button’ preceding the ‘High Performance’ option to select the Power Plan.

You will definitely feel a performance bump on your machine after switching from the ‘Power Saver option.

Disable Background Apps

While many important applications such as Mail or Calendar might need to run in the background to provide you timely updates in your day, the Calculator app or the Microsoft Solitaire Collection hardly qualifies to occupy your precious resources while running in the background.

It is high time that you put these non-productive apps to rest for the better performance of your machine and conserve energy on mobile devices.

First, go to the ‘Settings’ application from the Start Menu present on the taskbar. Alternatively, you can also press Windows+I shortcut to open the Settings app straight away.

Then, click on the ‘Apps’ option from the sidebar present on the ‘Settings’ screen.

After that, click on the ‘Apps & features’ option from the list.

Now, you can either search for an app using the ‘Search’ box present under the ‘app list’ section, or you can manually scroll down to find a specific app from the list.

Next, click on the kebab menu (three vertical dots) situated on every individual tab of an app and select ‘Advanced options’ from the list.

After that, scroll down and locate the ‘Background apps permissions’ section. Then click on the dropdown menu situated under the ‘Let this app run in background’ field and select the ‘Never’ option.

You will have to repeat this process individually for every non-critical app to disable the background permission for them.

These buggers might not have much impact on your RAM individually, but when combined, they might occupy a pretty decent amount of it.

Turn Off Transparency

Yes, this punch is straight to the guts. Many users might not want to turn off the transparency option, making the Windows 11 look quite modern. However, for the sake of performance, you might want to let this go.

To turn off transparency, go to the ‘Settings’ application from the Start Menu present on the taskbar. Alternatively, you can also press Windows+I shortcut to open the Settings app straight away.

Then, click on the ‘Personalization’ tab from the side panel present on the screen.

Now, click on the ‘Colors’ option from the list present on the screen.

After that, toggle the switch to the ‘Off’ position on the ‘Transparency effects’ tile.

Disable Shadows, Animations, Visual Effects

Well, turning off transparency is one thing, but to really tune your computer to get the possible performance, you will really have to go bare-bones on all the visual aspects windows have to offer.

To turn off all visual eye candy, go to the ‘Settings’ application from the Start Menu present on the taskbar. Alternatively, you can also press Windows+I shortcut to open the Settings app straight away.

Then, click on the ‘System’ tab present on the sidebar.

Then, click on the ‘About’ option from the list present on the screen.

Next, scroll down and click on the ‘Advanced system settings’ option in the ‘Related links’ tab.

After clicking the option, a separate ‘System Properties’ window will open on your screen.

Next, click on the ‘Settings’ button from the System Properties windows present on the screen.

Now, select the ‘Adjust for best performance’ option by clicking on the radio button preceding the option, or individually uncheck the options listed in the ‘Performance Option’ pane by clicking on the ‘Custom:’ option.

Once you have selected your preferred options, click on the ‘Apply’ button to confirm the changes, then click on the ‘OK’ button to close the window.

Tuning this option for best performance should be instantaneous in terms of feedback. This should make your explorer navigation much faster and smoother relative to before.

Turn Off Windows Tips and Tricks

Windows 11 will provide you with tips and tricks to use it better to be helpful to users. Unfortunately, to achieve this functionality, it needs to scan your computer, which can significantly impact the performance.

To fully reclaim your computing resources, go to the ‘Settings’ application from the Start Menu present on the taskbar. Alternatively, you can also press Windows+I shortcut to open the Settings app straight away.

Then, click on the ‘System’ tab from the sidebar present on the screen.

After that, select the ‘Notifications’ option from the list.

Now, click on the ‘carat’ icon situated on the far right edge of the ‘Notifications’ tab and then uncheck the ‘Get tips and suggestions when I use Windows’ checkbox from the list.

Your Windows machine should speed up fairly using the tips listed until now. If that’s not the case, let’s dive a bit deeper into the system settings.

Clean Up Your System

This is just a pure win-win situation. You can clean your junk files and get rewarded with a faster-performing machine. A good tip like this is pure bliss.

Now, you might be very particular about keeping your system squeaky clean and uninstalling the applications right away when no longer needed. However, there are still files occupying your Windows installer drive storage space which can definitely be reclaimed to give your machine the breather it needs to perform operations better.

To assess the junk files storage scenario, go to the ‘Settings’ application from the Start Menu present on the taskbar. Alternatively, you can also press Windows+I shortcut to open the Settings app straight away.

Then, click on the ‘System’ tile from the options available on the Settings screen.

After that, click on the ‘Storage’ option from the list present on the screen.

On the next screen, the system will scan your Windows installer drive and show a bifurcated view of the types of files occupying your storage space. Please remember this bifurcation will also include your personal files present in your Windows installer folder (like your installed programs).

It might take some seconds to scan your drive. So sit tight while Windows does that.

Once the scan is complete, you can click on any of the categories occupying the maximum storage on your Windows installer drive, which will vary depending on individual usage of the machine.

Next, you will see a detailed list of types of files and their individual file size, which are currently sitting in your local storage. To select a type of file, click on the individual checkbox(s) preceding their name on the list.

Once you have selected your preferred options from the list, click on the ‘Remove files’ option at the top of the list.

Note: Please remember to read the description present below each type of file available on the list to make sure you do not delete any unintended files.

Then click on the ‘Continue’ option from the alert to permanently delete your selected files.

If your Windows installer drive has been full up to the brim lately, this tip will definitely help you delete all the unnecessary files just sitting there and eating up your precious resources.

Disable Startup Programs

This tip works wonders when it comes to reducing your Windows machine boot-up time. The best part about disabling the startup programs is that you do not have to guess which app might be using your resources extensively at startup time. The system itself provides you with impact-level information of a program.

However, the only catch is you will need to start the programs manually after your system has booted up if they are critical to your daily usage.

First, click on the ‘Search’ icon on your taskbar, then type ‘Task Manager’ in the search box present on the screen. Then click on the ‘Task Manager’ app from the search results.

Now, click on the ‘Startup’ tab from the ‘Task Manager’ window.

You will now see the list of programs that will start minimized when your PC boots up. The impact of each application will also be listed in the ‘Startup impact’ column.

Then click on the app(s) listed as ‘High’ in the ‘Startup impact’ column and click on the ‘Disable’ button present on the bottom right corner of the Task Manager window.

Note: If the majority of the apps are listed as ‘No Impact’ or ‘Not Measured’, switching off all the non-critical apps might also help.

Disabling Startup apps will definitely give your machine a much-needed boost when booting up.

Stop OneDrive Sync

OneDrive is a great cloud-based storage utility from Microsoft to have all your selected files synced across your Windows devices.

That being said, OneDrive achieves this by constantly syncing your files between cloud storage and your computer. While modern PCs can handle this task quite fairly, it can be too much to handle for some older machines.

Hence, let’s first check if the OneDrive is the culprit behind slowing down your computer.

First, click on the ‘cloud’ icon situated on the right section of your taskbar.

Now, click on the ‘Help & Settings’ option from the overlay pane of OneDrive.

Then, click on the ‘Pause syncing’ option from the list. After that, choose a preferred time to pause the syncing of your OneDrive folder for the selected time.

If you experience a noticeable performance difference in the time frame, you have disabled the OneDrive syncing. Then the time has come to turn it off to help you overcome your computer’s sluggish performance.

To turn off OneDrive completely, click on the ‘Settings’ option under the ‘Help & Settings’ menu.

From the Microsoft OneDrive Settings pane, click on the ‘Account’ tab and then click on the ‘Unlink this PC’ option.

After that, you will receive an alert, read it and then click on the ‘Unlock Account’ button to unlink your PC and stop OneDrive services on your machine.

Defrag Your Hard Disk

As you use your hard disks, the storage space gets fragmented, and in turn, Windows cannot read and write on the hard drive as easily as it used to when it was defragmented.

Usually, the defragmentation happens automatically and does not require any intervention from your side. However, there can be scenarios where it is not running automatically and hence, resulting in your PC’s sluggish performance.

To optimize your drives, go to the ‘Settings’ application from the Start Menu present on the taskbar. Alternatively, you can also press Windows+I shortcut to open the Settings app straight away.

Then, click on the ‘System’ tile from the options available on the Settings screen.

After that, click on the ‘Storage’ option from the list present on the screen.

Next, click on the ‘Advanced storage settings’ option, and then click the ‘Drive optimization’ option from the list present on your screen.

This action will open a separate ‘Optimize Drives’ window on your PC.

On the separately opened window, you will be able to see your hard drive’s automatic optimization status and its frequency. You will also be able to check when they were last optimized.

If the ‘Scheduled Optimization’ is turned off, click on the ‘Change settings’ button from the lower section of the pane.

Next, check the ‘Run on a schedule’ option and choose the frequency by clicking on the drop-down menu followed by the ‘Frequency’ field. Setting the frequency to ‘Weekly’ is considered to be the best option.

Then, check the ‘Increase task priority, if three consecutive scheduled runs are missed’ option present on the pane.

After that, click on the ‘Choose’ option next to the ‘Drives’ label present on the window.

Then, click on the ‘Select all’ option from the top of the list to choose all the drives for optimization. Next, click on the ‘Automatically optimize new drives’ option and click the ‘OK’ button to apply changes.

Finally, if it’s been more than a week since your drives have been analyzed/optimized, click on the ‘Optimize’ button present on the pane.

Fragmenting a drive might take some time ranging from few minutes to few hours, depending on the storage size and the frequency of your writing data on the disk.

Use ReadyBoost

ReadyBoost is one of the most underrated features of Windows. ReadyBoost enables you to use your extra USB drive or an SD card as an extension of your RAM on the system, providing you with faster loading times for your most frequent applications.

However, using a USB drive slower than your hard drive won’t help you much. Hence you might want to consider a USB 3.0 drive for the ReadyBoost feature. Also, one of the major disadvantages of using ReadyBoost is that USB drives have limited read/write cycles. Thus its repeated use might reduce their life expectancy.

That being said, if you are using an older machine only for a temporary period of time, or you are planning to upgrade your machine and want to use ReadyBoost for the time being, it is by far a tremendous option.

To use ReadyBoost, first plug in your USB drive or SD card into your machine. If you use an SD Card, insert it using the in-built reader instead of an external reader as it might not provide sufficient performance.

Once your machine recognizes your drive and it shows up on Windows Explorer, right-click the USB and click on the ‘Format…’ option from the context menu.

Note: It is unnecessary to format a drive before using it for ReadyBoost. However, it is recommended to do so, as it provides you better performance.

From the Format overlay menu, select a ‘File System’ of your choice (NTFS being the best choice as it does not have a file size limit). Then choose the ‘Default allocation size’ from the ‘Allocation unit size’ drop-down.

You can also give a ‘Volume Label’ if you wish to, then check the ‘Quick Format’ option and hit the ‘Start’ button to start formatting your drive.

After that, you will receive an alert, read it and then click on the ‘OK’ button to proceed.

Once your drive is formatted, you will receive an alert stating the same. Click on the ‘OK’ button close it.

Now, again right-click the formatted drive and choose the ‘Properties’ option from the context menu.

Next, click on the ‘ReadyBoost’ tab from the available options present on the screen.

After that, on the ReadyBoost pane, you will see three options to configure your USB to use as a ReadyBoost device.

The ‘Do not use this device‘ option can be used to turn off the ReadyBoost feature on your USB if you had it enabled in the past.

Then, the ‘Dedicate this device to ReadyBoost‘ option will use the complete capacity of the inserted USB drive for the ReadyBoost feature.

The ‘Use this device’ option will enable you to use a fraction of your device for ReadyBoost. The remaining storage can be used to transfer files and folders, which you can adjust using the provided slider or by editing the values present right next to the slider.

Note: Some USB drives might not be able to provide you the capability to use ReadyBoost and file storage simultaneously. In that case, you will have no option but to use the entire USB drive/SD card for the ReadyBoost feature.

Once the preferences have been set according to your needs, click on the ‘Apply’ button present on the bottom right corner of the pane.

Windows will only take a few seconds to enable the drive for ReadyBoost. Once enabled, click on the ‘OK’ button to close the window.

Since the ReadyBoost feature is achieved using the SuperFetch system, which analyzes your habits and automatically loads the most frequent data on the ReadyBoost drive. The speed bump will completely vary from machine to machine and the usage habits of the user.

Turn Off Enhanced Search

Searching for some file in a folder filled with files is the modern equivalent of searching a needle in a haystack. However, you might often require to use the search features for only some folders and files on your computer. If that’s the case, you should definitely turn off Enhanced Search on your Windows machine.

Enhanced Search basically scans your whole computer for the keyword you typed in the search bar, and to achieve that, it has to index all your files present in the computer and require a decent amount of CPU consumption.

However, turning off Enhanced Search does not mean you won’t be able to search at all. Instead, you will still search from your selected drives and folder and maintain a good balance between good performance and efficient use.

To turn off Enhanced Search, go to the ‘Settings’ application from the Start Menu present on the taskbar. Alternatively, you can also press Windows+I shortcut to open the Settings app straight away.

Then, click on the ‘Privacy & security’ tile from the options available on the Settings screen.

Next, click on the ‘Searching Windows’ option from the list.

Now, click on the ‘Classic’ option present under the ‘Find my files’ section.

(The default search locations included in the ‘Classic’ search mode includes Documents, Pictures, Music folders, and also the files and icons present on the desktop)

You can also add search locations by clicking on the ‘Customize search locations’ option situated under the ‘Classic’ option.

This will open a new ‘Indexing Options’ window on the screen. Next, click on the ‘Modify’ option from the bottom left corner of the pane.

After that, click on the checkbox preceding the drive or a folder to include that particular directory in your search locations.

Note: As the number of selected directories increases, more computing resources would be required to index them. Thus, try to keep the number of directories as low as possible.

Once you are done selecting your directories, click on the ‘OK’ button to apply the changes and close the window.

(You will also be able to see the summary of your selected locations)

Turn Off Search Indexing

Well, if you do not use the search function at all on your Windows machine, why waste even a fraction of resources on it? Let’s learn to turn it off to reclaim that last ounce of resources if you have already turned off ‘Enhanced Search’.

To do so, click on the ‘Search’ icon present on the taskbar from the bottom section of your screen.

Now, type ‘Services’ in the search box, and then click on the ‘Services’ app search result.

Now, scroll and locate the ‘Windows Search’ service configuration from the Services window. Then, right-click on it and select the ‘Properties’ option from the overlay menu.

After that, click on the dropdown preceding the ‘Startup Type:’ field and then choose the ‘Disable’ option from the list.

Now, click ‘Apply’ to confirm your changes and then click the ‘OK’ button to close the window.

Next, reboot your system to let the changes take their effect. Your search will now be slower than usual. However, you will experience an overall jump in performance.

Well, people, these are all the tips and tricks to speed up your Windows 11 PC and let it break free from the shackles of sluggish performance.