Former Microsoft dev says Windows Start menu's performance is "comically bad," even with monster PC

[midian182]

Facepalm: Plenty of people still dislike Windows 11 – it's partly why adoption rates for the most recent OS are disappointing – so it's not surprising to hear someone complaining about its performance. Even a former Microsoft developer who helped build parts of Windows thinks Windows 11's Start menu is "comically bad" despite using a beast of a PC.

Andy Young, an ex-Microsoft senior software engineer, posted a message on X/Twitter bemoaning that even with his $1,600 Core i9 CPU and 128 GB of RAM, Windows 11 Start menu's performance is often awful.

Young included a video clip illustrating why he's so annoyed. The search function initially doesn't seem to work at all, forcing him to close and reopen the Start menu. It does function the second time, but everything is very laggy and the results are slow to appear.

The Windows 11 Start Menu is comically bad.

This machine has a $1600 Core i9 CPU and 128 GB of RAM and this is the performance I often get.

What is going on in Redmond? pic.twitter.com/hDvALHRB5q

– Andy Young (@anerdguynow) April 9, 2024

In the follow-up post, Young emphasized that he loves Windows, especially as he helped build parts of its code, but noted that there was still work left to be done given the significant percentage of users frustrated by Windows 11. He also expressed a longing for Windows to be "as good as it once was," which is something we all feel.

To be clear, I love Windows. I helped build parts of it. I want it to be as good as it once was. If data suggests the software you build frustrates a significant percentage of users, it means there's work left to be done.

– Andy Young (@anerdguynow) April 10, 2024

Windows 11 has faced problems since its official launch in 2021. The operating system's requirements were, and often still are, an obstacle for many – this reason is often cited for the slower-than-expected adoption rate of Windows 11 among businesses.

Windows 11 has also experienced plenty of performance-impacting issues in its time. There was the storage slowdowns that were killing HDD and SSD speeds (up to 55% slower random write speeds, in the case of the latter), the Virtualization-based Security (VBS) feature dropping game framerates, and plenty of updates that borked the system until Microsoft released a fix, which often caused another problem.

As for the Start menu performance, disabling the online search results will certainly speed things up. You can do this by using the Group Policy Editor or editing the registry. If you are running Windows 11 Pro, open the Group Policy Editor by pressing Win + R, typing "gpedit.msc" into the run box, and then pressing Enter. Navigate to User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > File Explorer. Double-click on "Turn off display of recent search entries." Select "Enabled," then click Apply and OK.

There are other registry edits that can help, including, as one user noted, going to Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop and changing MenuShowDelay from the default 400 to 0.

Windows 10 still holds a massive lead over its successor

Statcounter's latest results show that Windows 11's market share fell last month while Windows 10 gained users for the second month in a row. It's a similar story in the Steam survey, where Windows 11's share among participants declined for the second month while Windows 10 increased.

It'll be interesting to see what happens when Windows 10 support officially ends on October 14, 2025, and organizations not upgrading have to pay for the expensive Extended Security Updates (ESU) subscription.

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Former Microsoft dev says Windows Start menu's performance is "comically bad," even with monster PC

 

[cristianm]

He actually said that he had some issues with the search, not the entire OS. In fact, it seems windows 11 works ok with a lot of software (over 100 tests), on par with the latest (at that time) ubuntu and a bit better than the LTS version.

https://www.phoronix.com/review/7950x-windows-linux

 

[masaaya4]

Windows releases really has a bloat and streamline phase.

vista was bloated with visuals way too ambitious, driver issues galore.

7 was good, back to basic, it just works.

8 was bloated with the next hot thing: tablets and mobile, fancy looks.. most of the basic things were changed to accommodate the "new market"

10 was good, back to basic, it just works.

11 is bloated with AI, online integration, things to accomodate a "new market" requirements for hardware making old systems obsolete.

prediction for Windows 12: is going to be good, it just works, back to basics.

 

[Bruno M. Villar]

Guy is visually suffering with hardware based input lag and latency and try to blame a blazing fast operational system that I use at home since day one, with zero issues. I am a janitor he is a "developer"

 

[yRaz]

He actually said that he had some issues with the search, not the entire OS. In fact, it seems windows 11 works ok with a lot of software (over 100 tests), on par with the latest (at that time) ubuntu and a bit better than the LTS version.

https://www.phoronix.com/review/7950x-windows-linux

Works OK is not acceptable from a company worth hundreds of billions of dollars.

 

[takaozo]

That Start menu in w11 is 100% depending on Internet speed and latecy. With a good Internet line it never happened to me. Only exception is AD Domain joined machines, but that depends on the ammount of GPO/scripts received from AD. Workgroup with multiple users has about the same issue.

 

[VaRmeNsI]

How to Win11:
-Start11 v2
-Use registry to restore old right click menu
-Enterprise edition (disable telemetry)

 

[Theinsanegamer]

Works OK is not acceptable from a company worth hundreds of billions of dollars.

Correction: 3.18 TRILLION as of today.

Windows releases really has a bloat and streamline phase.

vista was bloated with visuals way too ambitious, driver issues galore.

7 was good, back to basic, it just works.

8 was bloated with the next hot thing: tablets and mobile, fancy looks.. most of the basic things were changed to accommodate the "new market"

10 was good, back to basic, it just works.

11 is bloated with AI, online integration, things to accomodate a "new market" requirements for hardware making old systems obsolete.

prediction for Windows 12: is going to be good, it just works, back to basics.

Funny how perception changes, I remember when 10 came out and people couldnt shut up about how bloated it was, how much useless garbage was installed on it, ece. Now that is considered "streamlined".

We've just gotten used to massive bloat.

 

[hahahanoobs]

I heard a complaint about Search and something about working for Microsoft in the past....

Is W11 amazing? Maybe not, but dude has to do better than that. It was cringe watching him use his mouse to click the search box in the start menu before typing. I don't think I've ever done that.

 

[lonetac]

People use the search bar? Man, thats the first thing I do away with.

After customizing 11 a bit, it works and feels like win 10 outside of cut and paste buttons that took a bit of getting used to.

Folks just hate new things. No new OS hasnt come without its criticisms as it introduces change and folks hate change.

 

[Athlonite]

I've not seen any of the problems he's bitching about my system seems to work quite sweet with Windows 11

 

[Mouseface]

Mine couldnt be any faster, though I use a 7800x3d

 

[BSim500]

Windows releases really has a bloat and streamline phase.

That used to be true up until around 2010. From W8 onwards it's just bloat-bloat cycles all the way. Eg, W10 (1507) ISO size was 3.8GB. W10 (22H2) ISO size is 5.7GB. That's +50% bloat within the same OS version and a lot of it was layer upon layer of crap no-one wants (more advertising / "suggestions" shoved into Start Menu & Settings, more telemetry, more "3D Objects, OneDrive", etc Explorer clutter, half the settings in Control Panel are duplicated in UWP Settings, Live Tiles, Cloud Content, MS Store saturated in the same wall of Freemium adware crap that infects mobile app stores, 101 junk re-installed UWP app bloatware (BingFoodAndDrink, BingFinance, BingHealthAndFitness, BingNews, BingSport, BingTravel, Onenote, Windows.Maps, WindowsPhone, ZuneMusic, etc, at one point including Candy Crush Saga), Clippy Reloaded (aka Copilot), two versions of Edge, etc... As TheInsaneGamer said, all that's happened is the bloat has become normalized enough that people have stopped seeing it for what it is.

prediction for Windows 12: is going to be good, it just works, back to basics.

It wasn't that long ago that Techspot ran an article with rumours of W12 needing a "Neon Compatibility Layer" to play "legacy software" (aka normal non-UWP games are likely to run worse) as well as the OS partition being "immutable" (aka, "with W12, you really won't be able to remove all the crap / everything O&O Shutup disables will be reset on every boot"...) It remains to be seen how that will turn out, but I'm willing to bet it's going to be W12 = W11 with more AI & adverts and "immutable" telemetry forced on, than another W7...

 

[brunocasarini]

I still can't accept that Windows 11 won't let me easily choose default apps. Trying to set VLC as default for all files it is able to handle requires me to choose one file type at a time. That's simply ridiculous.

 

[erickmendes]

Works OK is not acceptable from a company worth hundreds of billions of dollars.

Not hundreds but still...

 

[jarablue]

No idea what this guy is talking about. My Win11 install is fast as hell with 0 issues. Everything just works.

Maybe he needs to go back to school.

 

[DukeJukem]

How to Win11:
-Start11 v2
-Use registry to restore old right click menu
-Enterprise edition (disable telemetry)

stealing or paying an insane amount for enterprise isn't worth being able to set the "configure telemetry" group policy setting to "security" instead of "minimal". Just delete the service(s) related to telemetry. Things can't be collected if the service they rely on are completely dead.

 

[DukeJukem]

I still can't accept that Windows 11 won't let me easily choose default apps. Trying to set VLC as default for all files it is able to handle requires me to choose one file type at a time. That's simply ridiculous.

Don't treat your programs like you used to treat them on W10. It's a non user friendly way of saying things but unfortunately its the way W11 is. Just go into vlc, or whatever program you're using that you're trying to make defaults for, open their settings panel and check all the file types you want that program to open, then leave that horrible microsoft defaults page alone and simply open your files and select the program you want to use for those file types and hit always.

I know its a dumb way to deal with setting defaults but I'd much rather have a UAC/Windows Firewall like popup show its face one time, or even 10 when I open a specific file type and just select the program I want to use for said filetype and hitting always and never seeing it again as opposed to clicking everything under the sun a billion times in microsofts new defaults page.

you mentioned vlc specifically so you'll maybe see that popup a handful of times before it disappears after u tell vlc in its settings to open every video file type that exists/whatever else u want.

Like...I use 7 zip as my main program in that category but I only need it for like 4 filetypes. So I'm just going into 7 zips settings and telling it to be capable of opening everything and then I'm done. I open my files, even though they still show microsofts zip icon, or nothing and ill be prompted to choose 7 zip and make it default. That'll burden me 3-5 times or so as opposed to me clicking and setting 100 things in the microsoft defaults page.

microsoft is dumb.

 

[erickmendes]

stealing or paying an insane amount for enterprise isn't worth being able to set the "configure telemetry" group policy setting to "security" instead of "minimal". Just delete the service(s) related to telemetry. Things can't be collected if the service they rely on are completely dead.

But also most workplaces requires or have access to cloud/online services, so there's tracking anyway... Sure it's not the case with system that are local bound, using only on premise resources, but I can't think of many workplaces that don't use at least one cloud/online tool.

 

[JuanDegr]

"This machine has a $1600 Core i9 CPU and 128 GB of RAM"

This got me thinking. It's not even a good brag. Just a "Gedankenexperiment":

1. $1600 for a CPU would be too expensive. There is no $1600 i9 so I guess he means total cost of cpu + ram

2. Hopefully the 1600 USD figure does not include board, ssd and other parts as that would be a tiny amount for a whole rig - this would be a budget system (still possible with 128GB DDR 4 RAM on an older motherboard like e.g. Z690 - but this would render his argument invalid ("monster system", "using a beast of a PC")

3. So let's assume he meant $1600 for the CPU + RAM

4. Let's further assume i9 14900KS (the fastest i9), that's $750 out of budget

5. That leaves $850 for the ram. That means he grossly overpaid to get 4 sticks of high performance DDR5.

6. Why overpaid, you may ask? Because he will then find out that there are some issues with (any) 4 sticks of DDR5. I'm speaking from my experience with XMP. You will most likely not be able to run four sticks of DDR5 beyond 5600 at best. And this is miles better than what you get with AMD CPUs (4 sticks there will most likely run stable at 3600). This is the current state of 4 stick memory management. So anybody that builds a couple of rigs a year or just researches 10 minutes before buying knows that one should never run 4 sticks of DDR5 unless the capacity is that badly needed - which he maybe does. Still he could buy 2x2x32 vanilla 5600 DDR5 sticks for the same experience.

7. ERGO: This may be a "beast of a PC" but for most tasks (where the amount of RAM is not fully needed) it's presumably slower (at least concerning RAM) then most other modern CPUs with two sticks of DDR5.

That's the 1st spot where the brag fails to deliver.

8. All that said: When opening the start menu and perceiving the kind of lag shown in the video it's surely not connected to hardware, not to the cpu and surely not to the ram unless you run a grossly old system with 4gb of DDR3. The speed of internet connection will most likely determine the performance in the menu. So bragging with your high end PC (that is still not well put together in terms of amout of money spent AND will be slower in memory speed then most generic XMP dual stick rigs) will get you nowhere - at best.

So that's the 2nd place where the brag fails.

And don't get me started on the nooblike mouse movement and the staged code window in the background. So a monster pc by a monster die hard user and where does windows 11 fail to deliver? In the start menu! Didn't see that coming, that ruins the whole OS for any productivity work. Pathetic.

9. Still, it's a good clickbait article. I read it and had my fun.
Also, another thing, Techspot. The short sentence "Facepalm." is such a good start for any text. Let's do that more often, will ya? It helps with the attention. And I bet there are thousands of other professional Tweets on X out there. Such great content for any tech enthusiasts! Personally, I can't wait for more articles like that to be published. So keep on with the quality articles, Techspot

10. I'm all out. What do you think?

 

[maxxcool7421]

He actually said that he had some issues with the search, not the entire OS. In fact, it seems windows 11 works ok with a lot of software (over 100 tests), on par with the latest (at that time) ubuntu and a bit better than the LTS version.

https://www.phoronix.com/review/7950x-windows-linux

Disagree. after optimizing it for vmware it is slower then a win10 box in operations. not ''comically'' bad but win11 is more hardware demanding and win10 after stripping it down.

 

[Neatfeatguy]

Windows releases really has a bloat and streamline phase.

vista was bloated with visuals way too ambitious, driver issues galore.

7 was good, back to basic, it just works.

8 was bloated with the next hot thing: tablets and mobile, fancy looks.. most of the basic things were changed to accommodate the "new market"

10 was good, back to basic, it just works.

11 is bloated with AI, online integration, things to accomodate a "new market" requirements for hardware making old systems obsolete.

prediction for Windows 12: is going to be good, it just works, back to basics.

Driver issues on Vista are mostly to blame for MS. They redid the OS and how things are allowed to function and access the kernel. MS didn't give many companies ample time to learn, rework and distribute proper drivers. After a couple of years being out, Vista was a pretty solid OS.

7 was good.

8 tried to be something it wasn't - mobile based OS and desktop based OS all rolled into one. It sucked.

10 is good.

11, I wouldn't use it even if MS paid me.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

That used to be true up until around 2010. From W8 onwards it's just bloat-bloat cycles all the way. Eg, W10 (1507) ISO size was 3.8GB. W10 (22H2) ISO size is 5.7GB. That's +50% bloat within the same OS version and a lot of it was layer upon layer of crap no-one wants (more advertising / "suggestions" shoved into Start Menu & Settings, more telemetry, more "3D Objects, OneDrive", etc Explorer clutter, half the settings in Control Panel are duplicated in UWP Settings, Live Tiles, Cloud Content, MS Store saturated in the same wall of Freemium adware crap that infects mobile app stores, 101 junk re-installed UWP app bloatware (BingFoodAndDrink, BingFinance, BingHealthAndFitness, BingNews, BingSport, BingTravel, Onenote, Windows.Maps, WindowsPhone, ZuneMusic, etc, at one point including Candy Crush Saga), Clippy Reloaded (aka Copilot), two versions of Edge, etc... As TheInsaneGamer said, all that's happened is the bloat has become normalized enough that people have stopped seeing it for what it is.


It wasn't that long ago that Techspot ran an article with rumours of W12 needing a "Neon Compatibility Layer" to play "legacy software" (aka normal non-UWP games are likely to run worse) as well as the OS partition being "immutable" (aka, "with W12, you really won't be able to remove all the crap / everything O&O Shutup disables will be reset on every boot"...) It remains to be seen how that will turn out, but I'm willing to bet it's going to be W12 = W11 with more AI & adverts and "immutable" telemetry forced on, than another W7...

I'm just waiting for MS to pull the trigger and refuse to support win32 apps any longer, requiring you to jump through hoops just to use them.

THAT will set people off, and will derail MS's marketshare, since without win32 windows is no longer a valuable OS.

But also most workplaces requires or have access to cloud/online services, so there's tracking anyway... Sure it's not the case with system that are local bound, using only on premise resources, but I can't think of many workplaces that don't use at least one cloud/online tool.

I'm not concerned with workplace privacy, I'm concerned with personal privacy. Everything at work is recorded anyway.....

 

[AlmightyLoaf]

That Start menu in w11 is 100% depending on Internet speed and latecy.

my fiber internet connection is rock-solid and I also have similar Start issues, especially with search. I had to use a registry hack to disable web results

the Start menu is one of the most fundamental UI elements in the Windows OS. there's really no justification for degrading its performance due to an internet connection

 

[wiyosaya]

I have two win 11 pcs, built with "the latest" hardware at home that cold boot in under 4-seconds.

The moment the dolts at Microsoft started adding unnecessary cutsie crap, like files flying from folder to folder when doing a copy or a move, Windows became bloatware using unnecessary processing power to keep users with short attention spans entertained, IMO.

I wonder whether this guy wrote any of that cutsie crap? If so, he has nothing to complain about. Now comes more cutsie useless cpu wasting crap like AI. As I see it, Microsoft should stop thinking of Windows as a means to keep people entertained.