Fixed: Windows 11 Made My Computer Slow – 6 Solutions Included

β€œWindows 11 made my computer slow” is a common issue you see on the forums. This article gives you several ways to help you improve the performance of your Windows 11 PC. Please read on to learn the detailed steps.

By @Miya Last Updated December 28, 2023

User Case: New Updates of Windows 11 Made My Computer Slow

“I have a desktop computer and this is the second time that the computer has become very slow after an update to Windows 11. The first time was in December and now the second time is after an update a week ago. My last update was the Feb 18, 2022 update (KB4023057) and the one before that was the Feb 12, 2022 update (KB5010386). My hard drive is an SSD and shows 100% usage for the first 5 minutes after booting. Are there any updates or fixes available to fix this issue?”

If you are also like this user and want to know how to fix Windows 11 made my computer slow, then you have really come to the right place! This article will provide you with 6 effective ways to help you solve this problem. Let's get right to the point!

πŸ‘‰Moving Windows 11 to An SSD to Improve Computer Performance

Windows 11 Performance Fix

Starting October 5, 2021, the free upgrade for Windows 11 began rolling out to the public who have an eligible Windows 10 PC. All Windows 10 computers meet minimum system requirements for Windows 11 are eligible for the free upgrade.

While Windows 11 brings a new UI design and some improved features, many users are still experiencing performance issues. Don't worry if Windows 11 on your PC is making your computer slow. After reading this article, you should be able to easily tune your Windows PC for better performance!

Solution 1. Troubleshooting Windows 11 Performance

Before attempting more complex actions, run the Microsoft Support Diagnostic Tool to find and resolve Windows 11 performance issues.

  1. Press Windows + R to open the Run dialogue. Copy and paste the following command, then press Enter to open the System Maintenance window.
  • %systemroot%\system32\msdt.exe -id MaintenanceDiagnostic

  1.  Click Next and follow the on-screen instructions to complete the remaining steps.

When this tool finishes troubleshooting, it will locate what is slowing down your Windows 11 PC and either fix the problem automatically or provide you with a way to resolve it. If this tool does not find any problems, or if your computer is still running slowly, try the next fix.

Solution 2. Changing the Power Plan

A power plan is a set of hardware and system settings (such as display brightness, sleep, etc.) that are used to manage your computer's consumption and the way it saves power. By default, most PCs use a balanced power plan. You can fix the problem that Windows 11 made your computer slow by following these steps to change the power settings on your PC.

  1. Press Windows + R to open the Run dialogue. Type powercfg.cpl and press Enter to open the Power Options window in the Control Panel.
  2. If the High Performance power plan option is available, switch your power plan to High Performance. If the High Performance option is not available on your PC, you can click Change plan settings next to the current power plan.

  1. Then click Change advanced power settings.

  1. Expand Processor power management and set both the Minimum processor state and Maximum processor state to 100%.

  1. Click OK to save and apply the changes.

Solution 3. Disable Transparency Effects

These visual effects in Windows 11 do make the new operating system look modern and elegant. However, it also puts a big burden on older computers and may even cause them to become sluggish. You can turn off transparency and animation effects by following these steps.

  1. Press the Windows logo key and search for visual effects. Select Visual effects from the list of search results.

  1. Turn off the toggle button next to the Transparency effects and the Animation effects.

Solution 4. Disable Startup Programs

If you have too many programs loading at startup, you may experience slow startup of Windows 11 and may even slow down your system. We recommend that you try to reduce the number of startup programs and add only the important ones.

  1. Press the Ctrl + Shift + Esc keys together and open the Task Manager.

  1. Tap the Startup tab, right-click the application or service you want to disable, and select Disable.

πŸ‘‰ For apps from the Microsoft Store, you can also set the background app permissions to Never to prevent the app from running in the background. Here's how to do this.

  1. Right-click the Start button (Windows icon) and select App and Features.

  1. Right-click on the vertical three dots next to the application and select Advanced options.

  1. In the Background apps permissions section, click the drop-down menu under Let this app run in background and select Never.

  1. Repeat the above steps for other applications that you do not want to consume system resources in the background.

Solution 5. Clear Temporary Files

Temporary files (temp files) are files that are created for temporary storage of information. It keeps the computer smooth and fast when the user tries to perform the same task again. Corrupted or old temp files on Windows 11 can make your computer slow. To remove temp files from your laptop or computer, do the following.

  1. On your keyboard, press the Windows + R at the same time to open the Run dialog box. Type %temp% and press Enter to open the Temp folder.
  2. Press Ctrl + A on your keyboard to select all the files in the Temp folder, then press Del to delete all of them.
  3. On your keyboard, press the Windows + I at the same time to open Windows Settings, then go to System -> Storage -> Temporary files.
  4. Check the box in front of the file type, select the file type you want to delete, and then click the Remove files button to delete the file you selected.

Solution 6. Defrag Your Hard Disk

When you use your hard drive, the storage space will be divided freely. When this happens, it will slow down the Windows 11 operating system installed on the hard drive because the system will take more time to find the information stored on the hard drive.

By defragmenting your hard drive, you can reorganize the data stored on it so that the relevant data pieces are arranged in a contiguous manner, which helps the drive find information faster. In short, defragmentation can improve your computer's performance.

  1. On your keyboard, press the Windows logo key and type defrag. Select Defragment and Optimize Drives.

  1. Select the drive you want to defrag, then click the Optimise button.

Moving Windows 11 to An SSD to Improve Computer Performance

After you try the above methods, your computer will run faster. If you want to improve the performance of your computer, it is recommended to install Windows 11 on a solid-state drive (SSD). It is well known that installing a system on an SSD can greatly increase the system boot speed, reducing the time from minutes to a dozen seconds. It can also speed up the Windows system while it is running, making the whole system faster.

AOMEI Backupper can help you easily migrate your Windows 11 system to SSD and ensure you can boot successfully from the new hard disk. It is an all-in-one disk cloning software for Windows 7/8/10/11, including "Disk Clone", "System Clone" and "Partition Clone" to meet the needs of different users.

πŸ‘£ System Clone: Allows you to effortlessly clone your C: drive to an SSD. This is especially useful if you only want to migrate your system to the SSD and not all the data on the C drive. πŸ‘£ Disk Clone: Allows you to clone the entire hard drive to the SSD. This is useful for migrating all data from the old HDD to the new SSD, thus improving computer performance.

Next, I will show you how to use this third-party software to move Windows 11 to SSD to avoid the problem of Windows 11 slowing down your computer's performance.

🌟 Preparation:

  • Install the SSD to Windows 11. If your SSD is new, you will need to initialize it in Disk Management.
  • Download and install AOMEI Backupper on your computer.
Download Free TrialWin11/10/8.1/8/7/XP
Secure Download
  1. Launch this software, navigate to Clone tab on the left side. If you only need to move the operating system, select System Clone. If you want to clone the entire disk, click Disk Clone.

  1. The program is designed to automatically select the system partition and boot-related partition for you, you just need to select SSD as the new location and click Next to continue. 

  1. Confirm the operation, check SSD Alignment to speed up SSD performance, and click Start Clone.

  1. After successful cloning, shut down the computer. Remove the source drive from the computer, install the SSD and reboot the computer. You may need to enter the BIOS/UEFI settings and make sure that the newly replaced disk is the first bootable device.

Conclude

If your Windows 11 is slowing down your computer, you can try the 6 ways provided in this article to optimize your computer's performance. If you have tried all of the above and your computer is still slow, it is recommended that you move Windows 11 to an SSD, which will give your computer a speed boost.

AOMEI Backupper is a good disk clone software helps you migrate OS to SSD without reinstalling Windows. It also enables you to clone an entire disk to another disk, including the system and data on it. You won't experience any data loss or boot failure issues.