Debloating Windows made me realize how packed with useless features it is
We all want our computers to be as fast as possible, whether it's just for day-to-day workloads or for more demanding scenarios like gaming. There are many things you can do to help your Windows 11 PC perform better, but you may not be aware of all of them.
To help you out, we've gathered some of our favorite tips to help you get the best performance out of your PC. We won't be including some of the typical "install the latest updates" tips because, let's be real, while updates are good for many reasons, performance improvements aren't that common (you should still get them, though).
8 Use high performance power mode
Sometimes the simplest steps are all it takes
Right off the bat, let's start with something very basic that you might have overlooked. There's a setting in Windows 11 that changes the "power mode" of your PC, which is basically how it manages power consumption and performance. By default, most computers will have the power mode set to Balanced, but you can squeeze a bit more performance out of your PC if you choose the High performance mode. This keeps more of your CPU cores active at all times, so things generally run a bit faster, though you'll be sacrificing battery life if you're using a laptop.
Simply open the Settings app, head to the System section and then Power (or Power & battery), and set the Power mode dropdown menu to High performance. It's very easy and it can be very helpful.
7 Check your computer for viruses
One of the oldest tricks in the book
Much like installing updates, removing viruses from your PC isn't a surefire way to get a ton more performance, but it really depends on your usage, and if you do have a lot of viruses or potentially unwanted files, an antivirus scan can help clean things up and improve performance a little bit.
You can run an antivirus scan with the Windows Security app, which uses Microsoft Defender's scanning engine, but if you want to try an alternative, an option like MalwareBytes is also very good for occasional full system scans. The detection engine is one of the best in the game, and it's totally free (despite the nagging attempts to get you to pay for the premium version).
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6 Disable search indexing
If you're starved for performance
Windows keeps a constantly updated index of most of your user files, which allows you to use the search bar at the bottom of the screen to find your files more quickly. However, if you don't use this feature a lot, a good way to save resources is to stop indexing files, since the Windows indexer can use up a lot of resources.
This will affect your search experience, so we don't recommend doing this as your first attempt to get more performance, but if you choose to do so, you'll want to start in the Settings app:
Head to the Privacy & security section Choose Searching Windows, then click Customize search locations. In the window that opens, click Modify, and then uncheck all the boxes under selected locations (make sure to expand the existing locations to make sure you've unchecked everything). Click OK and you should be good to go.
If you disabled the Windows indexer but you still want an easy way to find your files, there's a program called Everything that provides its own lightweight search indexer that's much faster than the Windows one.
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5 Increase page file size
For when your RAM isn't enough
If you have a computer with a low amount of RAM, such as 4GB or 8GB (maybe even 16GB in some cases), another potentially helpful feature in Windows 11 is the paging file, which basically serves as virtual memory. Windows 11 basically cuts out a chunk of your hard drive and uses it as if it were RAM when the physical RAM on your PC isn't enough.
It's enabled by default, but if you find that it's not enough, you can customize the size of this file, and thus, the amount of virtual memory available. To do this:
Open the Settings app and go to the System section, then choose About. Under your device specifications, click Advanced system settings. Under Performance, click Settings. Switch to the Advanced tab. Click Change in the Virtual memory section. Uncheck the box labeled Automatically manage paging file size for all drives, and then use the radio button to choose Custom size. Enter the initial and maximum size of the paging file you want, but remember this space will no longer be available as storage. You'll likely want to choose a value that's at least equal to your physical RAM for the initial size. Click OK in each of the windows that opened to save your settings.
Depending on your drive speeds, the additional virtual memory may not be as helpful as you'd like, but it should still help on PCs with very little amounts of physical RAM.
4 Limit bandwidth for Windows updates
If your internet is the problem
Background image credit: Nintendo
Performance can mean a lot of things, and if you're experiencing slow internet speeds, it could be because of Windows Update using up your internet bandwidth. Thankfully, Windows lets you limit the bandwidth used by Windows Update to a specific value, so you won't be affected by unexpected updates. Here's how it works:
These steps are based on Windows 11 version 24H2. The page may look a little different if you're running an older version of Windows 11.
Open the Settings app and go to the Windows Update section. Click Advanced options and then choose Delivery optimization. Enable the Background limit as a % checkbox to set the maximum bandwidth Windows Update can use while downloading updates in the background as a percentage. Use the text box to set a lower percentage, such as 10%. You can also use the foreground option if you want to limit that as well.
If you'd like to set an absolute bandwidth limit, you can use the Download options dropdown and change it to Absolute bandwidth limit. This can help since the percentage limit is measured against the update source.
Expand the Upload options section and enable the Limit as a % of measured bandwidth. This limits the bandwidth used to upload updates to other devices on your network (or the internet, if you've enabled that option). Use the slider to limit the bandwidth percentage available for uploads.
This should help improve your internet speeds when new Windows updates are released, though you probably shouldn't expect huge changes on a constant basis.
3 Disable startup tasks
You probably have more apps running than you need
When you install a new app or program, there's a good chance that app will register itself to start up alongside Windows itself. It can be a good way to have things up and running from the get-go, so you don't have to remember to launch apps yourself. But it can also take a toll on your system startup times, and more importantly, in the overall performance when you have a lot of backgrounds apps running.
Disabling startup tasks is very easy in Windows 11. Just right-click the taskbar and choose Task Manager, and then switch to the Startup tab (it looks like a speedometer). From there, choose the apps you want to stop starting with Windows, and click Disable for each one. If you notice anything unusual after this, you can also re-enable apps that aren't working the way they used to. It's really that easy.
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2 Enable or disable efficiency mode in Task Manager
It's not suited for every app
Background image credit: Nintendo
Windows 11 comes with a feature in Task manager called Efficiency mode, which reduces the allocation of CPU resources to background apps in order to improve overall performance. Generally speaking, this is a good feature to ave, but sometimes, efficiency mode can slow down tasks that are actually important to you and make things perform worse than expected.
If you're having performance issues with a specific app, it's worth opening Task Manager and making sure it's not running in Efficiency mode. If it is, right-click the app and select the Efficiency mode option to disable it (it will show a checkmark if it's currently enabled). This may help improve the performance and responsiveness of that app. We don't recommend doing this for every app, though, since it might impact overall performance. If a given app isn't giving you problems, you should just leave it as it is.
1 Remove Windows 11 junk with Win11Debloat
There's a lot of stuff you don't need
Finally, one thing you can try that might help with performance on Windows 11 is removing all the junk that it generally comes with. You can uninstall apps manually if you want, but a great way to clean up your PC and speed things up a little bit is to use a script like Win11Debloat.
This is a PowerShell script the removes a lot of clutter from Windows 11, including uninstalling some preinstalled apps, disabling telemetry, removing Bing and Cortana from Windows Search, and more. It has a lot of optional capabiltiies that you can tailor to your specific needs, but the default option is already pretty helpful. Since it's just a PowerShell script, it's a super lightweight download that only runs when you want it to, so it won't slow down your PC at all. It really doesn't hurt to give it a whirl, and we highly recommend it.
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There are some last resort options
There are a few more things you can try in order to improve performance on your PC, though I'd say you can stay away from these unless you're really desperate for more performance. One such option is disabling visual effects in Windows 11, and cleaning up temporary files can also help. I recently wrote about how you shouldn't bother trying these, but if you have a really old and slow computer, maybe these steps will help.
With that being said, we've covered a lot of things here that are bound to help your PC run in tip-top shape. Outside of these tips, the only things that can really help are a full reset of your PC or simply upgrading your hardware if you can. At that point, you need to be prepared to spend some money on a high-end laptop.
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