I disabled this setting on Windows and my old laptop instantly felt faster

Pankil Shah

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I was about ready to give up on my old laptop that I used sparingly. It took ages to start, opening the browser felt like a test of patience, and even typing had a slight delay. Now, there’s no shortage of ways to make old laptops run like new, but if you asked me for the single tweak that made the biggest difference, it’s this one: forcing Windows to prioritize speed over looks.

It sounds simple, almost too simple, but switching off the visual fluff hiding under Windows’ hood instantly gave my old machine a second wind. The menus snapped open, apps launched faster, and the system felt lighter overall. It wasn’t magic; it was just Windows finally focusing on performance instead of appearances.

The hidden setting that slows your PC down

Most people never change this, but it makes a big difference

By default, Windows is configured to prioritize beauty over speed. You may not have realized it, but your Windows PC is full of animations, shadows, and transparency effects that are easy to miss. These include the smooth fade when you minimize or open a window, the subtle blur behind menus, the sliding motion of tooltips, and the drop shadows under desktop icons and text.

These touches make the desktop feel modern and polished, but they come with a small performance cost. Each visual flourish requires your computer to do extra work—rendering transitions, simulating transparency, and managing visual layers that don't really contribute to getting things done. Over time, these small tasks can add up, especially on older or less powerful machines.

The irony is that these effects are meant to make the system feel smoother and more responsive, yet on older hardware, they do the exact opposite. The impact becomes even more obvious on aging laptops and budget desktops. You click the Start menu and wait a half-second for the animation to play. You minimize a window, and there’s a tiny pause before it disappears. Open File Explorer, and you might even notice a faint stutter as the interface glides into view.