Rick's Daily Tips

Your daily dose of practical, easy to follow tech tips!

  • Home
  • Rick’s Bio
  • Advertise
  • Privacy Policy
  • Rick’s Tip Jar
  • Get My Tech Tips Newsletter
  • Recommended Tech Gear
  • Contact Me
You are here: Home / Computer Tips / Speed up Windows 10 by disabling ‘Pretty’ features

Speed up Windows 10 by disabling ‘Pretty’ features

Posted on November 29, 2020

If you’re like me you want your computer to respond to your clicks and perform its tasks as quickly as possible.

By default, Windows 10 has several features enabled that are designed to make the user interface look pretty.

For example, have you noticed how menus slide into view instead of just popping immediately onto the screen? Or perhaps you’ve noticed the cute little shadow that is displayed under your mouse pointer?

There are actually well over a dozen of these features that spiff up the user interface in Windows 10, and most of them are enabled by default. Unfortunately, all of those “pretty” features slow your system down by varying degrees.

If you want your Windows 10 PC to be as responsive as possible, you can speed it up a bit by disabling most or all of those “pretty” but unnecessary features. Here’s how:

1 – Press the Windows+S key combination to open a “Search” box.

2 – Type appearance into the search box, then select Adjust the appearance and performance of Windows from the list of search results.

3 – If you want to speed up your computer as much as possible and you don’t mind having a rather stark looking screen, you can disable all of the “pretty” features in one fell swoop. Simply select Adjust for best performance, then click OK.

Alternatively, you can select Custom and remove the check marks from just the features you wish to disable. That way you can keep using the features that you really like.

4 – (Optional) If you run one or more resource intensive programs you can select the Advanced tab and change the “Adjust for best performance of:” setting to Programs (if it isn’t already set that way).

That’s all there is to it. Your Windows PC is now using only the “pretty” features that you really want to use. The speed increase you’ll enjoy could range from “very little” to “quite a bit” depending on what you chose to disable, your computer model and the programs you use.

Bonus tip #1: Did you know that Microsoft has disabled the F8 key for booting into “Safe Mode” in Windows 10? Well, they have, but you can easily re-enable it (and I recommend that you do so). This post explains how.

Bonus tip #2: Want to make sure you never miss one of my tips? It’s easy! Just…

Click here to sign up for my free Rick’s Daily Tips Email Newsletter!


Would you like to ask Rick a tech question? If so, click here and send it in!

If you found this post useful, would you mind helping me out by sharing it? Just click one of the handy social media sharing buttons below. Thanks a bunch!






Popular…

How do I ask you a tech question?

Step-by-step guide to completely ridding your PC of viruses and other malware

10 reasons why I recommend buying tech gear from Amazon

How to upscale video – Top 4 AI video enhancers in 2023


Advertise

Guest Post Guidelines

Want to ask me a tech question?

Handy Tech Resources

Privacy Policy

Computer Tips
Smartphone Tips
Blogging Tips

Tech Q & A
Reviews
Tech News

Write for RicksDailyTips.com

Scam alerts
Downloads

Copyright © 2025 RicksDailyTips.com

Affiliate Disclaimer


Rick's Daily Tips is hosted by InMotion Hosting. Click here to find out why.

This blog uses cookies to ensure that you receive the best experience on my website. Please click 'Accept Cookies' to continue.Accept CookiesRead our Privacy Policy