Why Is Windows 11 So Slow? The Version-Specific Fixes
Short answer
Windows 11 adds overhead Windows 10 did not have: Virtualisation-Based Security costs 5–15% CPU on older hardware, widgets and Start menu search run constantly, and the thread scheduler handles some CPUs poorly without current drivers. Check VBS status in System Information first — on a machine upgraded from Windows 10, it is the most common single cause.
On this page
Most advice about a slow Windows PC applies equally to 10 and 11 — find the bottleneck in Task Manager, then fix that one thing. That general method is covered in why Windows is slow, and it is still the right place to start.
This guide covers what is specific to Windows 11: the changes Microsoft made that cost performance, particularly on hardware that ran Windows 10 comfortably.
Check VBS first
Virtualisation-Based Security uses the CPU’s hardware virtualisation to isolate parts of Windows from the rest of the system. It is a genuine security improvement and it costs real performance — typically 5–15% on CPU-bound work, and more on processors without current-generation virtualisation support.
The important detail: on a clean install of Windows 11, VBS is usually on. On a machine upgraded from Windows 10, it varies. This is why two identical PCs can behave differently, and why the machine that felt fine last year feels slow now.
Check whether it is running:
- Press Win+R, type
msinfo32, press Enter. - In the System Summary, find Virtualisation-based security.
- Running means it is active and costing you.
To turn it off, weigh the trade first — it defends against a class of attack that targets drivers and the kernel. If the machine is old and used for gaming or general work, disabling is defensible. On a work laptop with company data, leave it on.
To disable: Settings → Privacy & security → Windows Security → Device security → Core isolation → turn off Memory integrity. Restart.
If Memory integrity refuses to turn off, an incompatible driver is usually blocking the change — Windows names it in the error.
Turn off what runs constantly
Windows 11 added several always-on features that were not in Windows 10. None is individually large; together they are noticeable on a modest machine.
Widgets
The widgets panel keeps a process running that fetches news and weather continuously, and on some builds it is a persistent CPU and network cost.
Settings → Personalisation → Taskbar → turn off Widgets.
Web search in Start
The Start menu sends what you type to Bing while also searching locally. On a slow or unreliable connection, local results wait for the network — which is why typing an app name and getting nothing for two seconds is a Windows 11 hallmark.
Settings → Privacy & security → Search permissions → turn off Cloud content search and, under More settings, Show search highlights.
Startup apps
Windows 11 is more enthusiastic than 10 about letting apps register themselves at startup, including several Microsoft ones.
Task Manager → Startup apps — sort by Startup impact and disable anything rated High that you do not need immediately at login. Disabling does not uninstall; you can still launch the app manually.
Visual effects
The animations are heavier than Windows 10’s, and on integrated graphics they cost more than they look like they should.
Settings → Accessibility → Visual effects → turn off Animation effects and Transparency effects. The interface feels immediately snappier on older hardware, which is as much about latency as throughput.
Update the drivers that Windows Update will not
Windows 11’s thread scheduler makes decisions Windows 10 did not — in particular for Intel’s performance and efficiency core designs, where work placed on the wrong core type can cost a great deal.
Windows Update ships conservative, generic drivers. Get these from the vendor directly:
- Chipset driver — from Intel or AMD. This is the one that matters most for scheduling.
- Graphics driver — from Intel, NVIDIA or AMD, not from Windows Update.
- Storage controller driver — from your PC manufacturer’s support page.
On a laptop, the manufacturer’s support site for your exact model number is the right source, because their drivers include the firmware and power-management pieces the generic ones lack.
Set the power mode correctly
Windows 11 defaults laptops to Balanced, and several manufacturers layer their own power software on top, which sometimes caps clock speeds far lower than necessary while on battery.
Settings → System → Power & battery → Power mode → Best performance when plugged in.
Then check whether your manufacturer’s utility — Lenovo Vantage, Dell Power Manager, MyASUS, Armoury Crate — is overriding it. These frequently ship in a quiet or battery-saving mode by default.
Confirm you have enough memory
Windows 11 with VBS enabled uses meaningfully more RAM than Windows 10 did. The practical floor has moved: 8GB is tight once you add a browser, and 16GB is comfortable.
Open Task Manager → Performance → Memory and use the machine normally. If In use sits above 85% or Committed exceeds your physical RAM, you are paging to disk — which presents as a disk problem and is fixed by adding RAM or closing things.
The browser is almost always the largest consumer. Chrome’s architecture makes this particularly visible, and fixing Chrome’s memory use is often the cheapest available improvement.
The hardware floor
Some of this is honest arithmetic rather than configuration. Windows 11’s official requirements — 8th-generation Intel or Ryzen 2000 and newer, TPM 2.0, 4GB RAM — describe what it will install on, not what runs it well.
For a machine that feels responsive:
| Component | Minimum | Comfortable |
|---|---|---|
| Storage | SSD (required in practice) | NVMe SSD |
| RAM | 8GB | 16GB |
| CPU | Officially supported generation | 8th gen Intel / Ryzen 3000 or newer |
The storage row is not negotiable. Windows 11 on a mechanical hard drive is slow in a way no setting will fix — the OS assumes random-access performance a hard drive cannot provide. If you are running one, replacing it with an SSD outweighs every other change in this guide combined.
What does not help
- Registry cleaners. No measurable benefit, real risk of breaking applications. This has not changed.
- “Windows 11 debloater” scripts that remove system components. They fix little and routinely break Windows Update or the Store in ways that are hard to reverse.
- Disabling Windows Defender. Its scans are temporary; the exposure is not.
- Turning off all telemetry for performance reasons. The privacy argument is yours to make, but the performance gain is negligible.
- Reinstalling Windows as a first step. Sometimes correct, but diagnose first — on a machine short of RAM, a fresh install is slow within a week.
Realistic expectations
On an upgraded machine with VBS running, disabling Memory integrity plus installing the proper chipset and graphics drivers usually produces a clear, noticeable improvement. Turning off widgets, web search and animations adds a smaller but real amount.
If the machine is still slow after all of it, the limit is hardware — almost always 8GB of RAM or a mechanical drive. Task Manager will tell you which, and how to find what’s using 100% CPU or disk covers reading it properly.