Windows means well. It wants you to get started with as little friction as possible. But a lot of what it runs by default — background services, indexing, visual effects, startup apps — can take a toll on your PC. Some of it is not as useful, some of it simply holds your PC back. Cutting it down can do a world of good to your PC’s performance.

Search indexing isn’t worth it

A third-party tool does it better anyway

By default, Windows Search indexes everything on your drive, including photos, videos, documents, archives and even system files. But it’s not a one-time thing. Windows constantly scans your PC in the background as files move in and out. And when it does, it spikes CPU and disk usage, which can, of course, affect whatever you’re actually doing. The impact is more obvious on the budget and old machines.

The cherry on top is that Windows Search is still slow and unreliable after all this. One way to avoid this is to disable the search indexing entirely and rely on a third-party tool like Everything. Yes, it also needs to index files on your PC, but unlike Windows, it doesn’t index file contents. It only limits itself to file names and their location, which is what makes it fast and lightweight.

Those visual effects and animations aren’t free

Pretty costs more than you think

Windows 11 leans hard on animations with windows that fade in and out, taskbar effects, smooth scrolling animations, shadows under every element. All of that adds to the look, sure, but it also forces Windows to work harder. And on an underpowered PC, those same animations can end up making things look worse, not better.

The good news is that Windows lets you manage them how you like, which means you can disable all the unnecessary visual effects to make your PC feel snappier. Search for adjust the appearance and performance of Windows and choose Adjust for best performance in the Performance Options window. This basically kills every animation and effect across the OS.

This might make things look a bit bare or weird in some places, but don’t worry. If you don’t like it, you can selectively re-enable a few options, like Smooth edges of screen fonts, Animate windows when maximizing and minimizing, and Smooth scroll list boxes.

Balanced power mode can hold your PC back

Stop leaving performance on the table

Windows ships with “Balanced” power mode, which means it tries to find a middle ground between power consumption and performance. It works for most lightweight tasks, but it also means your PC never performs at the highest possible speeds. That especially shows up when you’re gaming or doing some resource-intensive work.

To change that, head to Settings > System > Power & battery > Power mode. Click the drop-down menu and choose Best performance. Windows does give you some flexibility here. If you don’t want to kill your battery while on the go, set Windows to high performance only when it’s plugged in, which is honestly the best of both worlds.

You don’t have to stop here either. Windows also has a hidden Ultimate Performance power plan, which you can enable. With this, your processor runs at full capacity with the obvious trade-off being higher power draw. It’s hidden for a reason though. This isn’t something you should use on a daily basis.

Windows loves to run apps without telling you

Startup and background apps

Every time you install something on Windows, there’s a decent chance it’s adding itself to your startup list. These apps basically start every time your PC boots, regardless of whether you actually need them or not. And when you have close to 30 apps doing the same, you can see how bad it can get. We’re talking about slower boot times, high RAM usage, and a PC that feels sluggish even when you’re barely doing anything.

An easy way to put a stop to this is to head to the Startup apps tab in Task Manager and disable any apps you don’t need to load at boot. The job isn’t done here, though. Because even if you open these apps manually, they continue to run in the background even after you close them. Opening the system tray or the Task Manager can reveal exactly what’s alive. You can either force close apps from the taskbar or revoke their background permissions.

Not all system services need to be running

Trim the background noise

Just like apps, Windows runs dozens of system services from the moment it boots. And the problem is, a good chunk of them don’t do anything useful. Things like Delivery optimization, SysMain, Windows Search (if you’ve already switched to Everything), Error reporting, and Telemetry just sit there consuming memory and CPU without actually benefiting you.

You can disable these from the Services app. Go through the list and turn off anything you don’t need. It’s a long list, and not everything here is safe to search, but there are some obvious candidates that you can disable without consequences.