3 Windows settings that can make or break your PC

Windows 11 is chock full of options, many just cosmetic. But there are some settings which can significantly affect your PC’s productivity performance, so much that I specifically pay attention to them each time I boot up a brand new PC.

If not properly managed, some settings can literally slow down your PC. Others, if adjusted correctly, can actually speed it up by a moderate amount.

Case in point: the Windows performance option. Remember the “turbo button” on the first PCs? When released, the PC was set to a compatibility mode that slowed the PC down to about 4MHz. When pushed in and activated, the PC ran at its rated speed — 33MHz or 66MHz, generally — giving you the performance you paid for.

1. Windows Power Mode

The Windows Power Mode, which has been around since Windows 10, is a bit like that. Within the Windows 11 Settings menu (System > Power & battery) you’ll see the Power Mode option with two drop-down menu options: “Plugged in” and “On battery”. Although the drop-down options vary by manufacturer, they’re usually set to “Best Power Efficiency,” “Best Performance,” or the generally default option, “Balanced.”

Do the settings actually do anything? Certainly. On an Intel Core 300 (“Panther Lake”) laptop I’m currently testing, the three options default to:

• Performance mode: 30W of sustained power, 60W of boost (turbo) power
• Balanced mode: 25W sustained power, 60W boost power
• Efficiency mode: 15W sustained power, 20W boost power

These are the terms the laptop maker chose, not the default Windows settings. In general, however, the more power fed to your processor, the faster it performs — just like pressing down on a car’s accelerator. There’s a measurable difference, too. Using the PCMark 10 benchmark, which measures the performance across a variety of applications, the scores were 8,434 for the “Best Performance” mode, 8,010 for the “Balanced” mode, and 6,721 for the “Best Power Efficiency” mode.

Put another way, adjusting the performance mode from the default “Balanced” mode to the “Performance” mode would give you a free 5 percent boost, or you could save half the laptop’s power by dropping to “Efficiency” mode — though performance would drop by 18 percent. Note that these scores apply to this laptop and processor only — your mileage will vary.

(Laptop makers uniformly want us to test in the “Best Performance” mode. But until I’m sure that most people know this trick, I stick to the default mode, whatever it’s set at.)

2. Storage Sense

That’s a free boost — but there are ways that your PC can slow down that can be offset by a judicious setting or two, too.

Storage Sense is the Windows setting that’s become increasingly important during the big storage crunch of the last year. More expensive storage means smaller SSDs, and that means making sure every bit of it is used to best effect. A few big, key apps, and your drive may end up in the red in File Explorer.

The problem here isn’t just storage space — it’s that portions of your SSD can be used as a cache, and if that cache is full the SSD performance (and, well, everything else) will slow down. Likewise, data is probably scattered across that SSD. With fewer spots to put that data, your SSD may end up moving existing data around before it can write to it. Again, performance drops.

Storage Sense (Settings > System > Storage > Storage Sense) should be on by default as an ongoing maintenance tool. It can be set to clean up your SSD every week or month, but generally only turns on as your free disk space shrinks. Basically, Storage Sense eliminates data Windows thinks you don’t need, such as past copies of Windows updates. It’s generally right.

You can also manually run Storage Sense by clicking the “Run Storage Sense now” button at the bottom, in case you have to fill the drive with a big application or just a big folder of data. (This is important! If you’ve just dumped a bunch of data on to your PC and it starts to slow down, it may be crammed full. Check File Explorer and Storage Sense to see, and then run the tool if needed.)

There are two things I’d keep an eye on. By default, Storage Sense does not touch your Downloads folder, and that’s a good thing in my book — a lot of necessary through random data ends up there. If that’s not the case, you can purge the folder using Storage Sense.

Storage Sense also has an option to take content that is stored locally on your PC as well as backed up in OneDrive and quietly make it cloud-only after a period of time. In other words, it removes the local copy of the file, and forces you to re-download it if needed. However, you can manually set this time as well as turn off this option entirely.

3. OneDrive and Windows Backup

That brings me to the one thing I personally hate about Windows, especially on a new PC: OneDrive and Windows Backup. As you use Windows, Microsoft wants you to use your OneDrive cloud storage as a repository for files you create or download on your PC, including Documents, Pictures, Music, Videos, and your desktop. When you buy and set up a new PC, Windows can use those backed-up folders to copy the content down to a new PC. That’s fine for those who want that.

I like the option to back up my files via OneDrive, but Windows does two things that can slow down your PC: copy local files to the cloud, as well as save “placeholder” copies of cloud files on your PC.

Asymmetric broadband connections (where download speeds far outclass upload speeds) are still common, so OneDrive copying local files to the cloud can rob you of upload bandwidth and keep your SSD or hard drive churning. Likewise, constantly downloading the backed-up “placeholder” files to your PC is unnecessary. Windows does this so that you don’t have to manually go and search out a needed file on OneDrive…but, still. So annoying.

Microsoft provides some “hardwired” controls from this for IT admins and Windows 11 Pro users, but I simply navigate to the OneDrive icon in the Action Center to the lower right-hand corner of the Windows desktop, open up the Settings gear, and then Sync and Backup.

Here, you can click the “Manage backup” button and turn off backup for all of the folders that OneDrive attempts to grab.

Unfortunately, I’ve found Windows doesn’t always respect your choices. Downloading cloud files seems to be inevitable, even if you manually turn off OneDrive. (The files begin re-downloading after the PC reboots.) And maybe it’s just because I bounce between PCs, but I’m able to manage OneDrive’s backup on some PCs, and not others.

Again, I’m not saying that you shouldn’t back up your PC’s files. But Microsoft’s decision to force you to use OneDrive is actively aggressive, and can slow down your PC unexpectedly.

In productivity news

• Microsoft’s Excel chief is answering questions about the future of Excel, and how AI fits into it.
• My colleague Sam Singleton highlights a couple of Web-based AI image upscalers, which can take an old, grainy photo and make it look a lot fresher. Just a reminder that there’s an extremely handy, simple version of this within the Windows Photos app, but only for official Copilot+ PCs.
• I’m going to link our ongoing best laptop deals article. Why? Because they’re getting harder to find. Seriously, start that back-to-school shopping pronto. Should you start with the Asus Zenbook A16 Snapdragon X2 laptop? Absolutely.
• Speaking of which, I’ve begun planning my own kid’s departure to college, where space is at a premium. Whether it’s a dorm room or a home office, clutter is bad. Declutter with these cheap accessories.
• I just shot a short video (not published yet) showing off how cool AI voice filtering is for your PC. Microsoft’s bringing a generic version to Windows. I can’t wait! (Insiders only, for now.) You know PCWorld’s on Tiktok and YouTube Shorts, right?

Productivity tip of the week

I’ve seen some chatter about the Pareto theory of productivity. The original Pareto principle says that 80 percent of consequences come from 20 percent of causes. That’s sometimes spun off into other areas (20 percent of society hold 80 percent of the wealth, say) or productivity, which argues that you should spend most of your time on a task with the most meaningful outcome.

I’m still wrestling with this one. I dug through it a bit, such as in this 2024 paper on the subject. Honestly, what I took away from it wasn’t the anecdotes from Microsoft or DB Schenker, where the Pareto principle was proven out, but the larger, ignored problem: how do you identify the basic factors that stand in the way of improved productivity?

It’s not perfect, but journaling your delays is one avenue toward improvement. What you’re trying to do is note where distraction came from (email, messaging), how frequently it occurred, and the severity. Note that this also includes factors like incomplete or vague instructions, the inability to locate a colleague, fatigue, bureaucracy, and so on. Group the categories, rank their priority, and then see if you can find common, addressable causes. Then track the changes.

Thanks for reading!

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