Taming Windows 11
The Windows 11 operating system is rich with features and nuances, but by pretty much any metric applicable to it, it is by default the slowest and most cumbersome Windows in history. If you have a lightning-fast computer and you don’t mind forsaking a portion of its power to Windows’ internal machinations, it’s good to go right out of the box.
For those of us who live in this universe… with more modest hardware and work to get done… it’s possible to configure Windows 11 to make it substantially less resource-hungry, and as such, noticeably quicker and generally better behaved. Some of these refinements are extremely obscure, but they’re unquestionably worth investigating.
This posting is our canonical list of the Windows 11 improvements we use in house. We hasten to add that no one of these is likely to kick Windows into hyperspace, but collectively they’ll make it seem like the simpler and much faster Windows of an earlier epoch.
As with all forays into Windows’ internal workings, we recommend creating a Windows restore point before you start clicking on things.