A Windows 11 speed boost is coming as soon as next month, along with a taskbar you can finally move

[Alfonso Maruccia]

Editor's take: Despite pushing its latest Windows OS as the best software product ever, Microsoft continues to face significant resistance from millions of PC users who have declined to make the switch. Now, the company is taking steps to rehabilitate an operating system that has struggled to shed its reputation for sluggishness, a perception that has dogged it since launch.

This new optimization push comes even as the company continues its campaign to embed Copilot almost everywhere and for everything. CEO Satya Nadella has acknowledged the need to win back users who have grown skeptical of the platform. Part of that effort is a renewed focus on raw performance, particularly on older hardware where Windows 11 has long felt unresponsive.

The key piece of that effort is Low Latency Profile, a feature designed to boost CPU clock speeds in brief bursts during UI-heavy tasks. It is now available in a Windows 11 preview build. Participants in Microsoft's Insider testing program can install builds 26100.8514 and 26200.8514 (KB5089573), which bundle several new additions alongside a targeted "general performance" improvement.

Windows Latest first spotted the update, noting the new builds aim to "accelerate app launch and core shell experiences" including the Start menu, Search, and Action Center – language that closely mirrors LLP's stated design goals.

Early testing suggests the feature meaningfully improves GUI responsiveness across the Start menu, system control panels, and native Windows apps. If LLP clears the Release Preview Channel without incident, it could be folded into the main update cycle as soon as Patch Tuesday in June 2026.

Microsoft is also revisiting one of Windows 11's most criticized regressions: Taskbar customization. The company framed the upcoming changes as a way to make the Taskbar "a more personal experience" – though in practice, Microsoft is largely restoring flexibility it stripped away when Windows 11 launched.

Users will soon be able to reposition the Taskbar along any edge of the screen, adjust icon alignment, and make other layout changes that previously required third-party tools or Registry edits. Future updates are expected to add auto-hide behavior, tablet-optimized modes, touch gestures, and a compact display option that reduces the bar's pixel footprint to reclaim vertical screen space.

The Start menu is also in line for an overhaul, with plans for a simplified customization interface, a redesigned "recommended" apps section, and improved file relevancy.

Microsoft intends to roll out these changes incrementally to Insider testers and is soliciting feedback through the built-in Feedback Hub.

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A Windows 11 speed boost is coming as soon as next month, along with a taskbar you can finally move

 

[Sherwoodnt]

Windows? Who dat?

 

[Aolish]

I just wish MS would take a page or two out of Apples Mac OS. When you look at a vanilla mac, it looks so clean, w/ no pop ups! None of that AI stuff and you don't feel the sluggishness you typically feel with Windows.

 

[winjer]

The big question is how many things will Microsoft break this time.

 

[Anton Longshot]

FINALLY a reason to upgrade to 11!

Joking. Never Gonna Happen.

Got two or three more personal projects to do first and then I'll likely have a MacOS desktop in my living room.
MS can go whatever.

Strangeness: my financial situation has changed greatly and I can actually afford to build a better, stronger, faster (Six Million Dollar man ruined my boyhood brain) PC in spite of the current insane prices.
But I'm not going to do that.
I might should MS cough up an oldskool good product but I don't have high hopes for that.

 

[Notmare]

If only this was the reason I had stopped using Windows. Sadly, I think their greed has already crossed lines that I don't expect I'll ever be able to overlook.

 

[p51d007]

I just wish MS would take a page or two out of Apples Mac OS. When you look at a vanilla mac, it looks so clean, w/ no pop ups! None of that AI stuff and you don't feel the sluggishness you typically feel with Windows.

Not yet anyway. Give Apple a chance to integrate #@()^% AI.

 

[Karlos95]

If only they gave us an OFF button for AI bloatware, then we'd get the same effects and nothing breaks.

But you know who runs Microsoft now... DEI destroys companies.

 

[Tech420]

If they also add back the ability to add "Toolbars" on the taskbar I might actually switch. I don't like the way things pinned to the taskbar in Win11 move around different places - I want them to always be in the same spot like how you can do with toolbars in Windows 10.

 

[scoffer]

We're removing AI..........Pinky promise.................

 

[Vanderlinde]

I just wish MS would take a page or two out of Apples Mac OS. When you look at a vanilla mac, it looks so clean, w/ no pop ups! None of that AI stuff and you don't feel the sluggishness you typically feel with Windows.

Microsoft likely figured that Vibe coding straight into windows was the answer to higher profits for being able to sack those expensive devs who know what they do.

They need to go back to the drawing board. Rack up an old Pentium III or AMD K7 with 384MB of RAM. A SSD through IDE and make a flawless and modern OS from there. If it runs good in there you have a good thing for future builds. Like Windows 7 or 10 was. After 10 things got downhill fast with their dreaming ambitions to shove everything up to their end users.

 

[daffy duck]

Explorer patcher moved my taskbar when I installed the OS. Why would you wit for M$ to restore broken functionality. I cannot even tell I'm on 11 anymore, it's almost exactly like 10 now in all areas.

 

[Axiarus]

CachyOS feels plenty snappy.

 

[poshflamingos]

If they also add back the ability to add "Toolbars" on the taskbar I might actually switch. I don't like the way things pinned to the taskbar in Win11 move around different places - I want them to always be in the same spot like how you can do with toolbars in Windows 10.

Brotha, just change the taskbar alignment to "left" (instead of "center") in the taskbar settings, and it will behave exactly like the Windows 10 one.

 

[Rapob]

Windows? Who dat?

Dats what 99% of PC gamers use and the OS used by billions worldwide.

 

[Rapob]

CachyOS feels plenty snappy.

Yep, my goto distro for desktop usage today.

For servers, it's Debian.

 

[Rapob]

FINALLY a reason to upgrade to 11!

Joking. Never Gonna Happen.

Got two or three more personal projects to do first and then I'll likely have a MacOS desktop in my living room.
MS can go whatever.

Strangeness: my financial situation has changed greatly and I can actually afford to build a better, stronger, faster (Six Million Dollar man ruined my boyhood brain) PC in spite of the current insane prices.
But I'm not going to do that.
I might should MS cough up an oldskool good product but I don't have high hopes for that.

Lets not act like MacOS is any better. I ran that **** for years on my Macbook Pro, got worse and worse till support dropped and then Linux was installed.

 

[Anton Longshot]

Lets not act like MacOS is any better. I ran that **** for years on my Macbook Pro, got worse and worse till support dropped and then Linux was installed.

I know what you mean - in my opinion it's all about personal preference. I happen to LIKE MacOS and the Apple ecosystem in spite of the connected issues. Linux OTOH I've tried several times, most recently with Mint on my laptop to see if it was a valid Windows replacement. I simply hate it. I cannot and will not invest the required time to make myself as proficient with it as I am with Windows and to a lesser extent MacOS. So there we are. I like Windows 10 and always have (also in spite of the issues). Windows 11 is a Red Flag Showboat that makes me see Admiral Ackbar telling me "It's A Trap!". It's not an OS but an ad platform and crippled to boot. I feel betrayed by MS after all these years since MS-DOS so I decided to leave.
I may keep the PC for gaming, possibly without Internet access if I must. I will also disconnect my comics reader PC - that machine doesn't need Internet even though the Ethernet cable's still plugged in.
My lovely laptop will have to be retired at some point that can't be helped - the Plan is to replace it with a *drumroll* MacBook when the time comes.

 

[Rapob]

I know what you mean - in my opinion it's all about personal preference. I happen to LIKE MacOS and the Apple ecosystem in spite of the connected issues. Linux OTOH I've tried several times, most recently with Mint on my laptop to see if it was a valid Windows replacement. I simply hate it. I cannot and will not invest the required time to make myself as proficient with it as I am with Windows and to a lesser extent MacOS. So there we are. I like Windows 10 and always have (also in spite of the issues). Windows 11 is a Red Flag Showboat that makes me see Admiral Ackbar telling me "It's A Trap!". It's not an OS but an ad platform and crippled to boot. I feel betrayed by MS after all these years since MS-DOS so I decided to leave.
I may keep the PC for gaming, possibly without Internet access if I must. I will also disconnect my comics reader PC - that machine doesn't need Internet even though the Ethernet cable's still plugged in.
My lovely laptop will have to be retired at some point that can't be helped - the Plan is to replace it with a *drumroll* MacBook when the time comes.

Windows 11 runs better than 10 today, so I don't understand how you like WIndows 10 but hate 11. They made just as many fckups with 10 over time. MacOS had multiple issues too over the years. No OS is perfect but a power user can always tweak an OS to their liking, which is what I always do, regardless of OS. I never just use stock install.

I would never trade my custom 11 install (with tweaks, adjustments and debloated) over any Windows 10 version today. Games and applications is optimized for 11 these days. Drivers too. I use newer hardware, and wants peak performance from it. Nvidia/AMD/Intel has full focus on 11, and little to no focus on 10 which is EOL / dated.

I would also rather run Linux than MacOS. I don't hate Apple, I use iOS on multiple devices but MacOS was never for me. So locked down. Feels like poor mans Linux. Hell for advanced users with updates that just force **** upon you (huge UI changes for example).

As I said, ran MacOS for like 6-8 years on a MacBook Pro. MacOS got worse and worse. Slower and slower (even with an i7, 16GB and 1TB M.2 SSD), Apple dropped support for the machine eventually. Linux was the savior. Machine got lightning fast again.

So you can hate Microsoft, or 11, or what you do. Doubt MS cares much. Reality is that Microsoft still has massive marketshare and MacOS and Linux has like 10% total.

Luckily, we are free to use what we want. People that play games and buy new hardware, typically uses Windows 11 because this is where the makers of said hardware, has 99% of their focus. They know their target audience runs 11 in pretty much all cases.

You can literally change 11 to your liking. Any advanced user does this and have done this since 11 came out. My 11 has zero AI, zero Copilot, zero unneeded background tasks, fully and completely optimized to perform better than LTSC version (while not being stuck at 24H2). It is not exactly rocket science, if you are actually an advanced Windows user.

 

[Anton Longshot]

Windows 11 runs better than 10 today, so I don't understand how you like WIndows 10 but hate 11. They made just as many fckups with 10 over time. MacOS had multiple issues too over the years. No OS is perfect but a power user can always tweak an OS to their liking, which is what I always do, regardless of OS. I never just use stock install.

I would never trade my custom 11 install (with tweaks, adjustments and debloated) over any Windows 10 version today. Games and applications is optimized for 11 these days. Drivers too. I use newer hardware, and wants peak performance from it. Nvidia/AMD/Intel has full focus on 11, and little to no focus on 10 which is EOL / dated.

I would also rather run Linux than MacOS. I don't hate Apple, I use iOS on multiple devices but MacOS was never for me. So locked down. Feels like poor mans Linux. Hell for advanced users with updates that just force **** upon you (huge UI changes for example).

As I said, ran MacOS for like 6-8 years on a MacBook Pro. MacOS got worse and worse. Slower and slower (even with an i7, 16GB and 1TB M.2 SSD), Apple dropped support for the machine eventually. Linux was the savior. Machine got lightning fast again.

So you can hate Microsoft, or 11, or what you do. Doubt MS cares much. Reality is that Microsoft still has massive marketshare and MacOS and Linux has like 10% total.

Luckily, we are free to use what we want. People that play games and buy new hardware, typically uses Windows 11 because this is where the makers of said hardware, has 99% of their focus. They know their target audience runs 11 in pretty much all cases.

You can literally change 11 to your liking. Any advanced user does this and have done this since 11 came out. My 11 has zero AI, zero Copilot, zero unneeded background tasks, fully and completely optimized to perform better than LTSC version (while not being stuck at 24H2). It is not exactly rocket science, if you are actually an advanced Windows user.

Sorry to be blunt about it but I get the strong impression you're trying to make me upgrade W10 to W11 and also avoid MacOS.
I do not understand why you'd want this nor do I want to understand.
Have a funky day..

 

[Beardog]

I just wish MS would take a page or two out of Apples Mac OS. When you look at a vanilla mac, it looks so clean, w/ no pop ups! None of that AI stuff and you don't feel the sluggishness you typically feel with Windows.

Yes, I want my screen looking like a million others. Just love those Apples.

 

[AmigaInside]

A taskbar you can finally move? The innovation here is too much to handle.

Hold off the new features, Microsoft. Slow down.

 

[mgilbert]

I've been using Windows since Windows 3.0, and MSDOS before that. Windows 11 isn't perfect, but all this crybaby whining and complaining online is exhausting. If you know what you're doing, windows 11 works just fine. I've not had a single crash or lockup in Windows 10 or 11, and I've been using both since they were first released. Sure, I miss the straightforward, uncluttered, no nonsense that was Windows 7, but 11 is stable and reliable, and it gets the job done. And unlike Linux, it actually natively runs all the software I use to make a living - and no, there are not Linux alternatives for any of those programs.

This all reminds me of an old saying... "It isn't the arrow. It's the archer".

 

[Win7user]

I've had my taskbar on top shortly after I installed Windows 11 25H2. It's not rocket science.

 

[Hecate91]

All of the "you're using windows wrong" and blaming the user from the Windows zealots is getting tiring. No I should not have to run a bunch of scripts, dig through the registry, or tear out half of the OS that Microslop forced upon everyone in the first place to get a somewhat usable OS again, especially not in a paid commercial operating system.
Linux is easier to set up from a fresh install than Windows is, and it seems like M$ has finally realized they're losing to the various Linux distros and Valve's Steam OS, especially in RAM utilization.
But I'll believe M$ is genuinely listening to their users and actually fixing things when I see it.