Why is my Win 11 slower than Win 10?

As someone who works with Windows performance tuning, here’s the reality: Windows 11 isn’t inherently slower than Windows 10, but there are several common reasons why an upgrade can feel sluggish:

1. Upgrade leftovers

When you upgrade in-place from Windows 10, a lot of old drivers, background services, and cached system files remain. These can cause conflicts and slowdowns. A clean install of Windows 11 usually performs much better than an upgrade.

2. Background features in Windows 11

Windows 11 enables additional visual effects, background services, and tighter security features (like VBS, TPM checks, and virtualization-based security) that can add overhead on older hardware. These don’t break performance on new PCs, but on mid-range laptops, they’re noticeable.

3. Drivers not optimized

Even if your laptop meets requirements, outdated drivers (especially graphics, chipset, or storage drivers) can drag down performance after the upgrade. Installing the latest drivers from the manufacturer (not just Windows Update) often fixes lag.

4. Hardware bottlenecks show more under Win11

• HDDs (instead of SSDs) = very slow boot and app loading times.
• 4–8 GB RAM = paging and stuttering more noticeable on Win11 than Win10.
• Older CPUs may struggle with Windows 11’s added background tasks.