Disable this Windows 11 setting for a faster, longer-lasting laptop  | amznusa.com

The modern look of Windows 11 relies heavily on what is known as ‘Fluent Design,’ with transparent menus and smooth animations. It looks stylish, but it takes up processing power. According to Microsoft’s documentation, rendering certain glass effects — such as the so-called ‘Acrylic’ material — is GPU-intensive and can slow down system performance on older PCs or laptops, as well as putting greater strain on your battery.

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If you’re using less powerful hardware or simply want a more responsive system, you can disable these effects in just a few clicks:

• Disable transparency effects: Press Win + I to open Settings and navigate to Personalization > Colors (or Accessibility > Visual effects). There, toggle off the switch for Transparency effects. This will make the display look a little simpler and may result in smoother performance on less powerful hardware.
• Disable animations: Under Settings > Accessibility > Visual effects, you can also turn off Animation effects. This means that, amongst other things, Windows will no longer display animated transitions when opening, minimizing or moving windows, nor will it show other motion effects in the interface. Menus and windows will then appear without these brief transitions, which can make the interface feel more immediate and responsive.

A classic performance tweak via the Control Panel

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You can also disable further visual effects in Windows. To do this, type ‘Adjust Windows appearance and performance’ into the search box on the taskbar and open the corresponding entry. Go to the Visual Effects tab and select Adjust for best performance. Windows will then disable various animations and other visual effects, which can make the system run more smoothly on less powerful hardware.

Even more performance bottlenecks lie dormant in the Autostart folder on older PCs. Open Task Manager using Ctrl + Shift + Esc and go to ‘Startup apps.’ You can disable any programs you don’t need there. These will then no longer be loaded automatically by Windows at start-up. You can re-enable these start-up programs at any time from here.

Note: Don’t expect these settings to provide a massive performance boost — on modern gaming PCs, the effect is negligible. On older laptops or mini PCs, however, disabling these visual effects can result in smoother performance or longer battery life.

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