10 Hidden Windows 11 Settings That Instantly Speed Up Your PC

There is nothing quite as frustrating as turning on your computer to get a quick task done, only to watch the cursor spin while your fans sound like a small aircraft preparing for takeoff. Even on fairly modern hardware, Windows 11 has a habit of feeling sluggish over time.

The good news? Your PC probably isn’t dying, and you don’t need to buy expensive hardware upgrades or download sketchy “PC cleaner” apps to fix it. Out of the box, Microsoft turns on dozens of visual effects, background sync tools, and tracking features that quietly chew through your RAM and processor power. Most of them are buried three or four menus deep where nobody ever looks.

Grab a cup of coffee, open your settings, and flip these 10 hidden switches. You will feel the difference almost immediately.

1. Stop Windows From Reopening Yesterday’s Apps on Boot

Have you ever restarted your PC to get a clean slate, only for your browser, chat apps, and random windows to pop right back up? That isn’t a glitch—it’s a default Windows 11 feature that saves your session before a reboot and forces everything to load at once the next time you sign in.

Where to find it: Open Settings > Accounts > Sign-in options.
What to change: Scroll down to the Additional settings section and toggle off Automatically save my restartable apps and restart them when I sign back in.

Your next restart will feel noticeably cleaner and faster because Windows won’t be fighting to reload half a dozen programs before you’ve even typed your password.

2. Cut Off Hidden Startup Programs

Every time you install a new app—whether it’s Spotify, Discord, Adobe Reader, or a printer utility—there is a good chance it sneaks itself onto your startup list. Running eight invisible helper tools the second Windows boots is the number one reason a fast SSD suddenly feels like an old hard drive.

Where to find it: Go to Settings > Apps > Startup.
What to change: Click the Sort by dropdown at the top right and select Startup impact. Go down the list and switch off anything labeled High impact that you don’t genuinely need the exact second your desktop appears. (Keep your antivirus and audio/touchpad drivers on, though.)

3. Kill Microsoft Edge’s Secret Background Processes

Even if you never open Microsoft Edge and strictly use Chrome, Brave, or Firefox, Edge is almost certainly running in the background right now. Microsoft sets it up to pre-load on startup and stay awake after you close the window so it launches faster if you ever click it.

Where to find it: Open Microsoft Edge, click the three dots in the top-right corner, and open Settings > System and performance.
What to change: Toggle off Startup boost and Continue running background extensions and apps when Microsoft Edge is closed.

If you don’t use Edge as your daily browser, this single tweak can free up hundreds of megabytes of RAM immediately.

4. Turn Off Frosted Glass Transparency and Animations

Windows 11 looks sleek thanks to its blurred “Mica” windows, drop shadows, and smooth fading animations. While those effects look great in screenshots, your graphics chip has to render them every single time you minimize a window, open the Start menu, or switch tabs. On laptops with integrated graphics, that translates directly into micro-stutter.

Where to find it: First, go to Settings > Personalization > Colors and turn off Transparency effects. Next, head to Settings > Accessibility > Visual effects and turn off Animation effects.

Everything on your screen will start snapping open instantaneously instead of gliding in slow motion.

5. Switch Your Power Mode Out of “Balanced”

By default, Windows 11 puts almost every computer—including plugged-in laptops and desktop PCs—into “Balanced” power mode. While that’s fine for saving battery when you’re unplugged at a coffee shop, it actively holds your processor back when you’re trying to work, edit video, or multitask.

Where to find it: Open Settings > System > Power & battery.
What to change: Look for the Power mode dropdown and switch it from Balanced to Best performance.

If you use a laptop, you can keep it on Balanced while running on battery and switch to Best Performance whenever you’re plugged into the wall.

6. Stop Windows From Sharing Your Bandwidth With Strangers

Buried inside the Windows Update menu is a peer-to-peer sharing feature called Delivery Optimization. Essentially, Microsoft uses your PC as a mini server to upload pieces of Windows updates to other computers over the internet—quietly eating up your network bandwidth and disk read/write speeds in the background.

Where to find it: Go to Settings > Windows Update > Advanced options > Delivery Optimization.
What to change: Toggle off Allow downloads from other devices.

Your internet connection stays yours, and your hard drive won’t randomly spike to 100% usage while you’re in the middle of a video call.

7. Enable Hardware-Accelerated GPU Scheduling

If your PC has a dedicated graphics card (or a modern integrated GPU), Windows 11 includes a tucked-away setting that lets your graphics card manage its own video memory directly rather than forcing your main CPU to babysit every frame. It reduces input lag and smooths out performance in games, video editors, and even heavy browser sessions.

Where to find it: Open Settings > System > Display > Graphics, then click Advanced graphics settings (or Change default graphics settings depending on your build).
What to change: Turn on Hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling, then restart your PC for it to take effect.

8. Silence Windows Tips, Suggestions, and Start Menu Ads

Windows 11 loves to offer unsolicited advice—suggesting apps in your Start menu, showing tips on your lock screen, and nudging you to set up Microsoft services you don’t want. Behind the scenes, Windows is constantly polling and indexing data to decide what to show you next.

Where to find it: First, open Settings > System > Notifications, scroll all the way to the bottom, expand Additional settings, and uncheck all three boxes (especially Get tips and suggestions when using Windows). Then, go to Settings > Personalization > Start and toggle off Show recommendations for tips, shortcuts, new apps, and more.

Not only does this make your workspace feel much calmer and less cluttered, it cuts out unnecessary background activity.

9. Put Storage Sense on Autopilot

When your main C: drive gets nearly full, Windows slows to a crawl because it runs out of breathing room for its virtual memory (paging file). Instead of manually hunting down leftover update files and temporary junk every few months, let Windows clean up after itself automatically.

Where to find it: Go to Settings > System > Storage and click on Storage Sense.
What to change: Toggle Automatic User content cleanup to On, set it to run Every week (or During low free disk space), and set temporary files to clear out automatically.

10. Unlock the Hidden Legacy Performance Menu

Even in 2026, one of the most effective speed boosts in Windows 11 still lives inside a classic Windows menu that hasn’t changed much since Windows 7. It gives you granular control over all the tiny visual extras that Windows Settings doesn’t expose.

Where to find it: Press Win + R on your keyboard to open the Run box, type sysdm.cpl, and hit Enter. Click the Advanced tab at the top, then click Settings under the Performance section.
What to change: Select Adjust for best performance. Before hitting Apply, scroll down the checklist and re-check Smooth edges of screen fonts (and Show thumbnails instead of icons if you work with lots of photos).

That one tiny checkbox keeps all your text crisp and readable while stripping out every last bit of unnecessary visual fluff.

You don’t even have to apply all ten of these at once to feel a difference—just clearing out your startup apps, killing Edge’s background boost, and turning off visual animations will make an older laptop feel surprisingly snappy again. Once you dial these settings in, Windows 11 finally gets out of the way and lets you focus on what you actually sat down to do.