Windows 11 is the most advanced operating system that Microsoft has on the market right now, and it is also the most demanding in terms of hardware. Something as simple as installing it in a PC that only fulfills the minimum requirements will make Windows 11 run slowAnd even a PC with double those requirements will not really have enough performance, because 8 GB of RAM is not enough for this operating system, especially if we have an integrated GPU that will consume part of that memory to use it as graphics memory.
It is important to have clear that Windows 11 is demanding, and that to offer a really optimal operation we need to count on a PC that comfortably exceeds its minimum requirements and that it has at least 16 GB of RAM. However, even in these cases it is possible that we may notice that Windows 11 runs slower and slower, and that the performance gradually worsens with the simple use of the computer.
This type of situation is very common, and in most cases it is due to improper use of the equipment, so they have an easy solution. Nowadays there are many users who do not know how to prevent Windows 11 from getting slower and slower, and therefore they are not aware that it is necessary to carry out a series of minimum tasks to keep it in good condition.
How to maintain Windows 11 in good state and to avoid that it goes slower and slower
Therefore, I have decided that it would be interesting to share with you all a guide where I will review a series of keys that will help you to maintain Windows 11 in good condition, and that will allow you to avoid that this one works increasingly slower. If you follow all these recommendations you will be able to use it for many years enjoying a good experience, and without having to worry about the classic formatting that is usually done as a last option to recover performance.
1.-Make a sensible use of the PC
This is one of the most important keys, and also one of the great forgotten ones. When I talk about making a sensible use of the PC, I am referring to many things that I am going to summarize below so that you are clear about them and thus avoid any doubts:
- Be aware of the limitations of our PC, because depending on them it will not be able to offer a good performance in certain scenarios, and this will be totally normal.
- Avoid entering dubious web pages and downloading applications or content that may represent a danger to the security of Windows 11.
- Do not have an unnecessary amount of applications, files or other elements open that may be consuming resources unnecessarily.
- Use applications and solutions that consume fewer resources and offer the same functional value as others that require more hardware.
During the last two decades I have come across a lot of problems that were directly caused by one or more of these four points I have just listed. One of the most recent, to stick to Windows 11, was that of a young person who asked me for help because he had just installed this operating system and it had started to run very slowly after only a few days of use.
When I asked him what he had done with the computer he told me nothing out of the ordinary, but when I checked the browsing history I discovered that he had been visiting sites that are a hotbed of malware and adwareand that I had even downloaded emulators that were not really emulators. The PC was running very slowly, and I had reached a point where the only viable solution was a reinstall of the operating system by completely wiping the old one clean.
2.-Keep your computer up to date, but be cautious.
The updates can be a double-edged sword, this is something that admits no discussion, and therefore we must be very careful when installing them, and is that not only they can make Windows 11 go slowerbut even they can even break it in whole or in part. The same applies to driver updates for specific PC components, such as the motherboard or graphics card.
Keeping Windows 11 updated will allow us to enjoy the latest bug fixes, security and performance improvements available, as well as new functions and other more or less marked changes that will translate into a better user experience. The same is more or less true for drivers, but we must keep in mind that this type of updates may also be accompanied by more or less serious errors.
Therefore, the ideal is to keep the operating system and drivers up to date, but not to be among the first to make the leap to these new versions, i.e. it is better to wait a bit to see how the latest updates behave.and when we are sure that they do not give any serious problem then we will proceed to install them.
I can confirm that, even in such cases, waiting is also not an absolute guarantee that everything will go well. when installing a Windows 11 update, and that these can give very varied problems, from making the operating system run slower to break certain things and cause stability problems. Unfortunately Microsoft has turned this issue into a lottery, and it is not alien to Windows 10 either, as we saw recently.
3.-Optimize storage drives periodically.
In order to avoid that Windows 11 loses performance and that it works increasingly slower it is also necessary to make optimizations of the storage units frequently, something that is very simple because we can automate them so that they perform by themselves in specific periods of time.
Optimizing an SSD storage unit in Windows 11 is very easy, and will help us to maintain performance and to prevent that Windows 11 and other applications that we have installed begin to go slower and slower. This process does not cause any wear and tear on the drive, it is completely safe and only takes a few seconds to complete.
To optimize the storage drives we must right click on any of them, we enter the path. “Properties > Tools > Optimization”.. Now we click on the unit we want to optimize and let it work. If we want to schedule an automatic optimization we just have to go to “change configuration”, just below “scheduled optimization”, and select the period of time we want to activate the automatic optimizations.
This process is much more important than it seems at first glance, so much so that I have been able to see noticeable performance increases with SSD drives by running different benchmarks before and after performing Windows 11 optimization, so don’t underestimate it.
4.-Do frequent cleanups and security scans.
It is a fact that with the simple use of Windows 11 this operative system can be filled with “garbage” and security problems. of little gravity that, with the passage of time, they accumulate and they can end up giving problems. To eliminate all that garbage, to clean the temporary files and to make security analyses not frequently will help us to avoid those problems, and will allow us to maintain Windows 11 in good state.
To eliminate the applications and other elements that we no longer need it is an excellent way of free up resources, and can help us improve the performance of our computerEspecially if they were loaded at startup and consumed a considerable amount of RAM from the beginning, even if we did not really need them. There are many ways to make cleaning in Windows 11, but next I am going to leave you two of the most effective:
Classic removal of installed applications
- Press the Windows key and type “Add and Remove Programs”.
- Enter the first result and choose the programs and applications you want to remove.
Advanced cleaning through the Windows 11 menu
- Press the Windows key and type “delete temporary files”.
- Enter the first result, and choose the section you want to access to free up space by deleting files and folders.
- You can also activate the Windows 11 storage sensor, which will automatically free up space and delete temporary space files.
- The cleaning recommendations offered by this menu will also be of great help to you.
Periodic security scans are highly recommended because, unfortunately, no one is exempt from the risks involved in surfing the Internet and downloading things from the net. Depending on what we do, and the risks we take, we may end up with some kind of malware and it may take us a long time to realize that we have a security problem.
Performing security scans at least once a week is a proactive measure that complies with the idea of prevention is better than cure.and it will only take us a few minutes. Windows 11 has a very complete and perfectly functional security solution integrated, so we can resort to it to perform these security scans. There is no need to spend money on a dedicated solution.
To make a security analysis we will press the Windows key, we will write “Windows Security” and we will enter the first result. Now we go to “Virus and Threat Protection”. and choose the option to perform a quick scan.
5.-Don’t let applications that load at startup accumulate.
This is a very common problem, and probably the most frequent that I find in the computers of most people who tell me that their PC has started to go slow for no reason. It is a consequence of simply using the computer, and can end up making Windows 11 run really slow, because. it generates a noticeable resource consumption which does a lot of damage to those systems with modest specifications.
I’ll explain it with a very simple example. On my PC, which has 64 GB of RAM, letting Windows 11 load Steam at startup means a consumption of almost 540 MB of RAMMicrosoft Teams consumes about 300 MB of RAMGood Old Games consumes about 340 MB of RAM, the Epic Games Store launcher also eats up about 336 MB and the Battle.net client needs other 220 MB.
If we add to that the consumption of other applications that can load at startup, such as One Drive and clients such as iCUE, sound applications from different manufacturers and other applications and tools, we will realize, doing numbers, that it is easy to increase the RAM consumption by 2 or 3 GB just by neglecting the applications that load at startup.. This on a PC with 32 GB or more of RAM will not make a major difference, but it will be noticeable on a computer with 16 GB of RAM, and can sink the performance of a PC with 8 GB of RAM.
Therefore, it is very important to delimit which applications we want to load at startup and which ones we do not. If we have a PC with less than 16 GB of RAM I recommend you, directly, that you disable all the startup applications that are not essential to you. This is very easy, we only have to enter the “Task Manager” and go to “Startup Applications”.. Once there, we right click on the ones we want to disable. We will be able to re-enable them following the same process.
