THE CRUNCH
Microsoft has confirmed that months of Windows 11 performance work have paid off, claiming the operating system is now up to 20 percent more responsive than before. The gains come largely from smarter memory and resource management, with improvements across Start, File Explorer, Search, Edge and other parts of the system.
The 20 percent figure comes with footnotes. Microsoft compared response times across Search, Start, Settings, Snipping Tool, File Explorer, Microsoft 365 and right-click actions, measuring the newest Windows 11 build 26300.9550 against the older build 26200.7628.
The memory work matters most on modest machines. Navjot Virk, corporate vice president of Windows experiences at Microsoft, says Windows can now keep up to 2GB more of your active data in memory rather than moving it to slower storage. On PCs with 8GB of memory or less, Widgets now load only when you open them, freeing more than 200MB for your apps.
Other fixes round out the update: Windows Update is less disruptive, Windows Hello sign-in is faster, Bluetooth pairing is more reliable, including an AirPods pairing experience that is up to 15 seconds quicker, and the taskbar can finally be repositioned to the sides or top of a display.