Microsoft claims Windows 11 is up to 20% faster. Here’s what changed

Microsoft is doing its best to improve Windows 11’s performance. According to a recent Windows Blog post, the company’s operating system has become up to 20 percent more responsive thanks to optimizations made and released over the course of this year. Improved features include the Start menu, File Explorer, Search, and the Edge browser.

One key change is that Windows now uses the computer’s RAM more efficiently, so it can run more smoothly on systems with 8GB RAM. According to Microsoft, Windows 11 can now keep up to 2GB more active data in RAM rather than moving it to slower storage. You’ll notice the boost most prominently when several apps or browser tabs are open at once.

Microsoft has also reduced memory usage for features that run in the background. On computers with 8GB of RAM or less, for example, the Widgets panel is only loaded when the user opens it. This supposedly frees up to more than 200MB of RAM.

Windows Update has also been improved to require only one system restart per month as well as shorten update installation times. In addition, logging in with Windows Hello and connecting Bluetooth devices should work faster and more reliably overall.