Any problems with activating Windows 11 and changing the product license key?

Find Activation settings in the search field and click Open. Windows 11 activation status will be displayed on the screen. Then go to “Update product key” - “Change product key” and click on the corresponding button. Enter the product key which is a 25-character code, and click Next to check the key and activate Windows 11.

What if Windows 11 can’t find hard disks during the installation?

If you encounter a strange situation when Windows is unable to detect hard disks while you are trying to install Windows 11, try loading corresponding drivers in the course of installation. For Intel CPUs, you need to install Intel Rapid Storage Technology (IRST) driver during the installation of Windows 11: Download Intel Rapid Storage Technology (IRST) driver from the official website. When the download is ready, extract files from the archive. Copy the entire folder to a USB flash drive, and if you install the operating system from a USB drive, then you can copy the folder with drivers right to the root folder of the USB drive. Connect the USB drive and restart Windows 11 installation; in the main screen, click to load the driver. After that, click “Browse” to access the folder containing the drivers. Select the necessary driver and click Next. When the drivers are installed, the hard disks will be displayed correctly.

How to back up and restore files?

Use the File History tool to back up your stuff to an external hard disk; also, you can create backup copies in a network-attached storage. File History regularly backs up your files in such folders as Documents, Music, Pictures, Videos and Desktop, as well as OneDrive files available offline on your PC. After some time, you will have a complete history of all your files stored there.

How to back up files with File History?

Type File History in the search field and click to open it. Click “Select drive.” Choose the drive you would like to back up your files to and click OK. When the drive is selected, the File History feature will be enabled. Choose “Save copies of files” menu to set up how often you want to back up your files, and “Keep saved versions” to decide how long the files should be stored, then click “Save changes.”

How can I restore files with File History?

Type “File History” in the search field and click to open it. Click “Restore personal files.” After that, you’ll be able to choose a specific file/folder, a few of them, or all data on the backup drive. After you’ve made your choice, click “Restore.”

Boosting Performance for Windows 11: Essential Guide for Computer Users

Author: Vladimir Artiukh
Editor: Oleg Afonin
Updated: 23.09.2024 16:32

Looking to boost performance for your Windows 11 computer? Look no further! Our comprehensive guide will walk you through expert strategies and techniques to successfully enhance the performance of your Windows 11 system. Say goodbye to sluggish performance and enjoy a smoother computing experience!

Boosting Performance for Windows 11: Essential Guide for Computer Users

Contents

The performance of Windows 11 has improved slightly in comparison with Windows 10. In the new version of its operating system, Microsoft introduced enhancements to memory and disk management, application priorities and some other things related to CPU and battery performance. However, many users – especially those who installed Windows 11 on unsupported devices – may face performance issues which include lags and regular freezing. Although there are a few minor problems that still remain in Insider builds, I’d like to show you several proven methods to make your Windows 11 work faster and boost your computer’s performance.

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🚀 How to Improve Performance for a Windows 11 Computer? 🚀

Step 1. Restart and update

If your computer tends to freeze, or gets too slow with the new operating system, the first step to take is to check for updates and update your Windows if necessary.

Click on the Start menu – Settings – Windows Update – Check for updates, and if there’s something new on the list, download and install it, and then restart your computer.

Restarting can also help if you experience an occasional problem that seems to slow down your PC.

Step 2. Disable startup for applications

To make your operating system boot faster, disable startup for certain applications, because some of them start together with the operating system and thus make it boot longer than normal. To do it for typical Microsoft apps like One Drive, Microsoft Teams, or Edge, open Settings – Apps – Startup, and turn off every program you don’t want to start together with Windows.

To disable startup for third-party software, open Task Manager. Right-click on the Start menu – Task Manager, then click “More details” here and open the Startup tab, select a program and then click “Disable” below.

Step 3. Disable animation and visual effects

The main visual differences introduced in the new operating system include smooth animation, blurring, transparent interface elements and so on. These novelties in the user interface truly give Windows 11 a brand new look. But once again, all these nice-looking things come at a price, especially if you’re not using a dedicated graphics card. So if you want to configure your Windows 11 for performance rather than appearance, you can change some options accordingly.

Open Settings – Personalization – Colors. Turn off “Transparency effects”.

After that, navigate to “Accessibility” tab on the left side panel and then to “Visual effects” on the right. Here, turn off “Transparency effects” and “Animation effects”.

Turn off Transparency effects and Animation effects

After that, click on the Start menu and search for “View advanced system settings”. In the “System Properties” window that opens, find the section “Performance” and click on “Settings”. From this list, select “Adjust for best performance”, then click OK and “Apply”. This will reduce the burden of visual effects and your computer will be geared for better performance.

Step 4. Change power options

If you have a laptop and you want the best performance in Windows 11, while you don’t care for how long it’s going to work on battery, change your power plan. Open Settings – System – Power battery. In the power plan drop-down list, select High Performance.

Step 5. Configure hard disk defragmentation

Over time, pieces of files get scattered all over the hard disk, and this can also affect your computer’s performance. This problem can be fixed by giving your hard disk a defragmentation session.

Open Settings – System – Storage – Advanced storage settings – Drive optimization. Select a hard disk from the list and click “Optimize”.

There’s one important thing to keep in mind: it’s not recommended to defragment an SSD, as it will reduce its life cycle.

If “Optimization on schedule” it disabled, click on the “Change settings” button, check the box for “Run on schedule” and then choose how often it should be done. Generally, we believe that setting the schedule option to “Weekly” is the best choice.

The time required for disk defragmentation ranges from a few minutes to several hours and depends on the capacity of your storage and the degree of its fragmentation.

Step 6. Change from HDD to SSD and add more system memory

If you are still using a conventional hard disk as the home to your Windows, it’s high time to consider moving it to a solid-state drive. You will experience a huge performance boost, and you will be surprised by how quickly Windows can boot.

Parameter	SSD (Solid State Drive)	HDD (Hard Disk Drive)
Storage Technology	Flash memory (no moving parts)	Magnetic platters and mechanical parts
Read/Write Speed	Very high (up to 3500 MB/s and more)	Low (up to 200 MB/s)
Reliability	High (no moving parts, less prone to damage)	Lower (mechanical parts can fail)
Storage Capacity	Typically up to 4 TB	Up to 16 TB and more
Power Consumption	Low	High
Price per GB	Higher	Lower
Data Access Time	Almost instant	Slower
Lifetime	Limited write cycles (typically 3,000-10,000)	Depends on mechanical wear
Heat Emission	Low	High
Noise	Silent	Audible mechanical noise
Weight	Lighter	Heavier
Fragmentation	Does not affect speed	Fragmentation affects performance

These days, we don’t recommend installing any operating system on a hard disk, for any reason. And if your computer tends to freeze when you have many programs running at the same time, it is most likely that you need to add more system memory. As we all know, the amount of RAM has a serious impact on a computer’s speed and performance, and the more you have, the better.

Step 7. Disable restartable apps

To make your work faster and more comfortable, Windows 11 restarts some background apps after you log in. If you have a powerful computer, this feature could be something you really enjoy. On the contrary, you can disable it for older machines and get a performance boost in Windows 11.

Open Settings – Accounts – Sign-in options, find “Additional settings” and turn off the option “Automatically save my restartable apps”.

Step 8. Remove unnecessary apps

If you no longer use some of the programs which are installed on your computer, it’s time to remove them. Each of them may have background processes or active automatic update options. All of these take up your computer’s system memory and processor time and thus make it work slower than it could. What is more, they also take away your precious disk space, and leave quite a lot of junk files in the registry.

So open Settings – Apps – Apps/features – find the things you don’t need anymore, click on the three dots button and choose to uninstall them.

Step 9. Clean up temporary files

Temporary files stored on the system disk can also make your computer slower than it should be. To say goodbye to them, open Settings – System – Storage – Temporary files; then select what you want to remove – for example, temporary Internet files and thumbnails, then click “Remove files”.

Step 10. Disable notifications and tips

To improve your user experience, the operating system will often show you notifications, advice and recommendations. Before displaying them, it will scan the computer to see what can be improved – and reduce its performance while doing that. To have this feature disabled, open Settings – System – Notifications. There are two options here: “Offer suggestions on how I can setup my device” and “Get tips and suggestions when I use Windows”. Disable both of them.

Step 11. Disable background apps

Additionally, there are applications that run in the background. They don’t have a graphical user interface, and unlike your typical apps, such programs work all the time since you install and configure them. To turn them off, right-click on the Start menu and open “Apps/features”, select an application from the list, and click on the three dots button to access “Advanced options”. After that, set the background app permission to “Never”.

To close a currently running background application, right-click on the Start button and start Task Manager; select the application from the list and click “End task”.

Step 12. Disable VBS

One more thing that you can disable is Virtualization-Based Security (or VBS for short). This is a security feature in Windows 11 that protects the operating system from unsafe code and malware, and it is a part of Hypervisor-Enforced Code Integrity (or HVCI). However, it can reduce computer performance in games from the moderate 5% to the enormous 25%. If you’re keen on games and you want to make the most of your rig while playing in Windows 11, just turn VBS off. Here’s how you do it: use the search feature to find “Core isolation”, open it and disable the option “Memory integrity”.

Step 13. Turn game mode off

On the other hand, if you don’t play games at all, you can disable the game mode for good. It will stop DVR and other background services related to Xbox, and accelerate your computer a bit more. Open Settings – Gaming – Game Mode, and turn it off by dragging this slider. You can also turn off Xbox Game Bar.

Step 14. Configure virtual memory and paging file

For the same purpose, we recommend to configure your computer’s virtual memory (paging file). This file should be located on the fastest disk of your computer or in the system partition. We do not recommend letting the operating system decide on the size of the paging file, or leaving it dynamic.

Open Settings – System – About – Advanced system settings.
In the window that opens, click on “Performance settings” – “Advanced”, and then click “Change” in the “Virtual memory” section.
Uncheck the box for “Automatically manage paging file size”.
Choose the drive where you’d like to keep the paging file, specify its size, click “Set” and OK.
For the virtual memory settings to apply, restart the computer.

Configure virtual memory and paging file

Step 15. Windows troubleshooter

Windows 11 has a special utility that helps you find and troubleshoot various performance issues. Search for “Security and Maintenance” and start the automatic maintenance tool – click “Next” and then “Try troubleshooting as an administrator”. After the diagnostics is over, it is recommended to restart the computer.

Step 16. Disable search indexing

If your computer has a conventional hard disk, it can be too slow because of too many operations involving this disk – such as file indexing, caching, and file search results. Use the search feature to find and start the “Services” app, then find Windows Search on the list and turn it off. Right-click on the service and select “Properties” – “Stop” – “Apply”.

Now restart the computer. When this service is stopped, search will become slower than usual, but the system performance should improve.

Step 17. Update device drivers

Immediately after the installation, Windows 11 should work in a fast and stable manner unless some components are out of date or missing. We recommend installing new updates as soon as they are available. Another case involves obsolete drivers: if you haven’t updated them for a long time, the operating system can’t work properly.

Therefore, it becomes difficult to achieve best performance, and the computer seems to slow down considerably. To keep your Windows 11 in a good shape, always make sure that all your drivers are up to date.

Step 18. Disable boot menu timeout

If you have several operating systems installed on your computer, their list is displayed when booting, and the default time for this is 30 seconds. To speed up the boot process, you can reduce this timeout or even turn it off. Open Settings – System – About – Advanced system settings – Startup and Recovery – Settings.

Modify the time or disable this option.

Step 19. Enable Storage Sense feature

The Storage Sense feature lets the operating system monitor the amount of free disk space and manage it by removing unnecessary files automatically. When enabled, it will take care of junk files even without your knowing about it. To enable it, open “Settings” – “System” – “Storage” – and turn on “Storage Sense”.