Optimize Windows 10 Performance by tweaking Visual Effects

Windows 10 is the most optimized and fastest OS provided by them, there will always be tweak enthusiasts and power users who want to squeeze out the last drop of performance to make Windows 10 run faster. Windows 10 too offers some visual effects, animations, and features can be disabled to improve its performance – similar to what was being offered in Windows 8/7.

Today in this article, we’re going to talk about the visual performance optimization of Windows 10/8.

Disable visual effects in Windows 10

1. Press Windows Key + X combination to see the following menu. Select System in the bottom left corner.

2. In the System window, in the left pane, click on Advanced system settings.

3. In the System Properties window, pick Settings for Performance.

4. In the Performance Options window, you will see 3 options:

1. Let Windows choose what’s best for my computer
2. Adjust for best appearance
3. Adjust for best performance.

Selecting Adjust for best performance may make your Windows perform slightly better, but you will have to sacrifice on the visual effect – and that maybe something you may not want to do.

Here are the settings I prefer to uncheck. Feel free to change them and make them suit your needs.

I prefer to remove checkmarks from the following options:

• Fade out menu items after clicking

• Enable transparent glass (you will lose the cool Aero look though)

• Animations in the taskbar

• Fade or slide menus into view

• Fade or slide Tool Tips into view

• Animate windows when minimizing and maximizing

• Show shadows under windows

• Slide open combo boxes

Finally, click Apply and then OK. Now you could access to Desktop, if you like using Windows + D key combination.

You’ll now see that performance of your Windows 10 may have increased marginally.

You also have another way and that is as follows:

Open Control Panel > Ease of Access > Make the computer easier to see.

Here you will see a Turn off all unnecessary animations (when possible) setting. Check the box and click Apply.

This setting is, of course, available in Windows 8/7 too!

See this post if you frequently receive 100% Disk Usage message.

Stay in the flow with follow-ups and @mentions

Maintain your train of thought by leaving follow-ups in the document, and bring others into the conversation by mentioning them directly in the canvas. You’ll also get suggestions in places where you might want to add more info, so you can follow up with references or other details.

To start a follow-up, right-click and select New Follow-up.

Tip: You can also type a left bracket [ and a right bracket ] followed a space to start a follow-up.

Type your follow-up, and then press Tab when you’re done. The follow-up will be highlighted in yellow.

Note: If you’re using SharePoint Online, you can even add an @mention as part of a follow-up. Type @ and their name. If they don’t have access, the Share box will appear. Select Share and notify to grant access.

To resolve a follow-up, select it and select Remove text or Keep text, depending on your preference.

To see a list of all follow-ups, select one and select See all Follow-ups. This makes it simple to navigate through the Follow-ups. Select one to jump to that part of the document.

Follow-up with Word suggestions

Intelligence in Word now recognizes follow-ups as you type them. Text highlighted in blue means there is a suggestion for you.

Note: This feature is currently only available in English.

Select the highlighted text and choose to Mark for Follow-up or mark Ignore.

Word will even suggest links for you. Select the blue highlight to see a list of recent docs. Or select Show more results to open the Search pane and find what you want to link to.

Note: The blue highlighting is only temporary while you have a document open. As soon as you close it, the documents formatting will go back to the way you had it formatted.

Capture and apply Windows Full Flash Update (FFU) images

Deploy Windows faster on the factory floor by using the Full Flash Update (FFU) image format. FFU images allow you to apply an image of a physical drive, including Windows, recovery, and system partition information all at once directly to a different drive.

Unlike the file-based WIM format, FFU is a sector-based file container that stores one or more partitions. Sector-based imaging means that FFUs take less time to deploy, but have larger files sizes than WIMs. See WIM vs. VHD vs. FFU: comparing image file formats for information about the differences between image formats.

Starting with Windows 10, version 1709, DISM has the ability to capture, deploy, and service FFUs, with the following limitations:

• The drive that an FFU is applied to has to be the same or larger than the drive it is captured from
• FFU captures of encrypted disks are not supported
• Captures of disks that have Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) enabled are not supported
• Splitting compressed FFUs is not supported

What you need to work with FFUs in Windows

To capture, deploy, and mount FFU images with DISM, you’ll need to work in a Windows 10, version 1709 or later, or WinPE for Windows 10, version 1709 or later environment.

To capture and deploy FFUs using the instructions below, you’ll also need:

• A Windows PC that has been generalized with Sysprep. We’ll refer to this as the reference PC. For a walkthrough on how to create an image that’s ready for deployment, see the OEM deployment of Windows 10 lab.
• A PC to deploy the FFU image to. We’ll refer to this as the destination PC. The hard drive on this PC will be overwritten, so make sure you’re using a PC that doesn’t have any information you want to keep.
• The latest version of the ADK, from Download the Windows ADK
• Bootable WinPE media for Windows 10, version 1803 or later. See WinPE: Create USB bootable drive for instructions on how to create WinPE Media.
• Storage

  USB storage, formatted as NTFS with enough space to save the FFU. 16 GB is enough space to store an FFU of a basic Windows image. You can use the same USB drive for WinPE and storage if you follow the instructions for creating a multipartiton USB drive. For best performance, you want to maximize I/O between where your FFU is stored and the destination PC. For best performance use a USB 3.0 drive to store the image, and an internal SSD for the destination device.

  or

  Network storage where you can keep your FFU image. For optimal performance, use a 1 Gb or faster network.

  Capture an FFU

  Boot the reference PC using WinPE bootable media.

  Identify the drive to which you’ll be capturing the image from. You can use diskpart, or add Windows PowerShell support to WinPE and use Get-Disk for scriptability and more complex setups such as a server with multiple disks.

  The output will list your drives. Make a note of the disk number in the Disk ### column. This is the value that you’ll use when capturing your image.

  Use DISM to capture an image of all the partitions on the physical drive. For disk X:, the string used with /capturedrive will look like this: \\.\PhysicalDriveX , where X is the disk number that diskpart provides. For example, to capture Disk 0, you’d use /CaptureDrive:\\.\PhysicalDrive0 .

  For more information about PhysicalDrive X, see CreateFile function.

  To see command line options for capturing FFUs, run dism /capture-ffu /? or see DISM Image Management Command-Line Options. Note that you shouldn’t have to specify a PlatformID when capturing a desktop image.

  The following command captures an FFU image of PhysicalDrive0 called WinOEM.ffu. The /name and /description arguments allow you to set information about your image. This information is displayed when you use dism /get-imageinfo . /name is required, /description is optional.

  This command also gives a name and description to the FFU image. Name is a required parameter.

  Deploy Windows from WinPE using an FFU

  Boot your destination PC to WinPE.

  Connect a storage drive or map the network location that has your FFU file and note the drive letter, for example, N.

  Identify the drive to which you’ll be applying the image:

  Note the drive number in the Disk ### column.

  Apply the image to the cleaned drive. Here, we’re applying n:\WinOEM.ffu to Disk 0.

  To see the commands available with /apply-ffu, run dism /apply-ffu /? or see DISM Image Management Command-Line Options.

  Capturing and applying FFUs on differently-sized drives

  The FFU format captures the partition layout. If the reference PC and destination PC hard drives may be different sizes, use this strategy to make sure your Windows partition is as large as it can be:

  On the reference PC, install Windows with no recovery partition, and set up the Windows partition as the final partition on the drive. To set this up, use Windows Setup or a deployment script.

  

  On the destination PC, deploy the FFU. For larger drives, there will be unused space at the end.

  

  Using Diskpart, expand the Windows partition to fill the empty space.

  

  Then, shrink the Windows partition to make room for the recovery partition.

  

  Configure your recovery partition.

  Mount an FFU for servicing

  You can use DISM to mount FFU images for servicing. Like with other image formats, you can mount and modify an FFU before committing changes and unmounting. Mounting an FFU for servicing uses the same /mount-image command that you use for mounting other image types. When mounting an FFU, you’ll always use /index:1 when mounting.

  Unlike WIM images, FFU images get mounted as virtual hard disks. Files appear in the specified mount folder, but since FFUs can contain more than one partition but only have one index, DISM maps only the Windows partition from the mounted FFU to the mount folder.

  To mount an FFU

  Open a Command Prompt as administrator.

  Mount the image using dism /mount-image . This example mounts D:\WinOEM.ffu to C:\ffumount:

  To see available command line options for /mount-image run dism /mount-image /? or see DISM image management command line options.

  Service your image. For example, to enable the legacy components feature:

  To see available options, run dism /image:

  Unmount your FFU image and commit or discard changes. If you use /commit, your changes will be saved to your FFU file.

  To unmount your FFU and commit changes, you’d use /unmount-image with the /commit option:

  If you decide to not keep the changes you’ve made to the FFU, you can use /unmount-image with the /discard option:

  Announcing Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 21354

  Hello Windows Insiders, today we are releasing Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 21354 to Windows Insiders in the Dev Channel.

  Starting with today’s build, Windows Insiders will notice that the name of the branch we are releasing builds as shown on the desktop watermark at the lower right of the desktop from has changed to CO_RELEASE. Just like we did back in October when we released builds from the FE_RELEASE branch, we can change which branch we flight builds from. As our engineers work in development cycles internally, we may prioritize work being done in a specific branch and may need to move Insiders between branches. We are treating these builds the same as we would treat builds from the RS_PRERELEASE branch.

  What’s new in Build 21354

  New personalization options for news and interests on the taskbar

  Thanks for your continued feedback for news and interests on the Windows taskbar! We’re continuing to develop the experience based on your suggestions. Today, we’re pleased to announce a new set of features rolling out for personalizing the feed to suit your interests.

  Now, when you hover on the weather on your taskbar, you’ll see a new “Manage interests” button appear at the top of the window. This button links to a new full-page personalization experience, where you can choose the topics that you’re interested in. New users may also see a personalization card in their feed to help them get started.

  

  Use the search box at the top of the “My interests” page to search for the topics or publishers you want to follow. You can also discover interests by browsing over a dozen categories, including different types of news, entertainment, and sports topics. When you select a topic to follow, you’ll see more stories about it in your feed as stories become available. You can manage the topics you’re following by selecting “Followed interests” in the left navigation.

  

  We’re also excited to announce, “Tune your feed”, available from the left navigation on the “My interests” page. This experience makes it easy to explore and follow publishers from our partner ecosystem and select example articles that pique your interest. Select a couple of publishers and stories to get started or scroll to see more. You can see and manage the publishers you’re following by clicking “Followed Publishers” on the left navigation. You can also tune your feed wherever you see a story. Click the “X” on the top right of the card to remove the article and provide feedback: “Not interested in this story”, “Don’t like the source”, or “Report an issue”. We’ve refined this experience based on user feedback, to give you another way to fine-tune your feed for your preferences.

  These new personalization experiences are now available in several markets, including the U.S., U.K., Canada, India, and Australia, with global rollout continuing. We look forward to hearing what you think about these new options for personalizing news and interests!

  Reminder: We continue to roll out news and interests to Windows Insiders, so it isn’t available to everyone in the Dev Channel just yet.

  Improvements to Display Settings

  Content adaptive brightness control (CABC) disabling: CABC helps improve battery performance on PCs, but with the trade-off of decreased image quality. It can result in distracting brightness changes that interfere in experiences where image quality is of high importance such as for creative professionals looking for color accuracy. The ability to turn CABC off has been a highly requested feature and Windows Insiders can now disable CABC directly in the Display settings via Settings > System > Display.

  Note: Depending on your device, you may see just one (or both) of the checkboxes seen under the brightness slider below. To find out if your device has CABC support, you can look at your GPU control panel.

  HDR certification: To bring awareness to high quality HDR displays and educate customers, we are bringing HDR certification to Settings > System > Display under “Advanced display settings” with the latest Insider Preview builds. Under this settings page, a display’s HDR certifications will be shown.

  We will be rolling out this feature over time and are starting with select Dolby Vision and VESA DisplayHDR models, so please don’t be alarmed if in the Advanced display settings, you see that your display has no HDR certification even though it is certified.

  New Camera Settings page

  We are extremely excited to introduce a new Camera Settings page we’ve been working on, giving users the ability to add/remove cameras and configure the default image settings of each one.

  

  This page allows you to manage cameras through the Settings app, whether they’re connected directly to the device (like a webcam) or are ONVIF IP cameras on your local network (for more info on ONVIF support in Windows, see this blog post). This new Settings page can be found at Settings > Devices > Camera. Each camera has a “Configure” button that lets you make changes to the default brightness and contrast – letting you get rid of the pesky backlight that always shadows your face in your video calls. Depending on what features are supported by your camera, you can configure brightness and contrast, enable Video HDR or Eye Contact, or correct for camera rotation.

  

  We look forward to hearing your feedback about this new feature. Please try out the Configure default image settings for your camera Quest on Feedback Hub and then send us your feedback at the end – we’d love to hear what other features you’d like to see, and if you run into any issues with your specific PC, camera and/or video app.

  Inbox app updates

  MSPaint is now updated via the Microsoft Store:

  MSPaint is now updateable via the Microsoft Store outside major OS updates. It also has a new icon and has been promoted out of the Windows Accessories folder to its own place in the Start menu.

  Snipping Tool is now updated via the Microsoft Store:

  Snipping Tool is now updateable via the Microsoft Store outside major OS updates. It has been packaged together with Snip & Sketch so we can deliver updates for both at the same time. It has also been promoted out of the Windows Accessories folder to its own place in the Start menu.

  NOTE: Because we’re combining both Snip & Sketch and Snipping Tool, Insiders who previously did not have Snip & Sketch installed will see Snipping Tool removed after updating to this build and will have to go and install Snip & Sketch from the Store to get it back.

  Organizing all the admin and system tools under Windows Tools:

  In Build 21343, we announced we changed the name of the Windows Administrative Tools folder in Start to Windows Tools as part of an effort to better organize all the admin and system tools in Windows 10. In Build 21354, we are continuing that effort. The Windows Accessories, Windows Administrative Tools, Windows PowerShell, and Windows System folders have now been removed from Start and the apps within these folders can now be accessed via the Windows Tools entry point that directs to the full apps list in File Explorer. All these apps will still appear in via search, launch via any method, can be pinned to Start or taskbar, and any customized shortcuts in the folder paths will remain intact. Also, File Explorer has been moved into its own place in the Start menu as part of this work.

  Changes and Improvements

  • [News and interests] As mentioned previously, we have enabled the ability to deselect “Open on hover” in the “News and interests” taskbar options. This is based on your feedback.
  • The default path to access Linux files from Windows using the Windows Subsystem for Linux has been changed from `\\wsl\\` to `\\wsl.localhost\\` to improve performance and reliability. You will still be able to access Linux files using `\\wsl$\\`.
  • Under Settings > Update & Security > Change active hours, you will find the toggle turned on for “Automatically adjust active hours for this device based on activity”, if you have never adjusted this feature. We are starting a roll out a change for Insiders that makes this setting on by default. With this setting turned on, Windows Update will be able to schedule automatic restarts when you are typically not using your device more accurately.
  • As of the latest versions of Microsoft Edge, all pinned sites (regardless of what version you were using when you pinned them), should now use the taskbar behavior described here without you first having to unpin and re-pin the site.
  • On ARM64 devices, you can now toggle compatibility settings for x64 applications.
  • Under Settings > Personalization > Device usage, you can select all the ways you plan to use your device to get customized suggestions for tips, tools, and services.

  Fixes

  • [Gaming] We fixed an issuewhere certain games may crash, will not sync save data when a game is played on a different device, or will not save when a new game is installed.
  • [File Explorer] We fixed an issue resulting in all folders pinned to Quick Access in File Explorer disappearing if you installed Build 21343. Please note that this fix prevents the issue from occurring going forward, it will not bring back the ones that were unpinned if you installed the impacted build previously.
  • [File Explorer] We fixed an issue resulting in some Insiders experiencing that the entire folders section of Quick Access was missing after installing the previous flight.
  • We fixed an issue impacting Search reliability in the previous flight.
  • [News and interests] Fixed an issue where news and interests could occlude other content on the taskbar especially on smaller screens.
  • We fixed an issue where the tooltip text for items in Start’s Power button menu wasn’t displaying correctly.
  • We fixed an issue resulting in a crash if you entered WinPE and tried to enable Narrator using WIN + CTRL + Enter.
  • We fixed an issue resulting in some Insiders experiencing a bug check with error SYSTEM_THREAD_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED when rebooting or shutting down in the previous flight.
  • We fixed an issue that could result in a bugcheck when starting WSL.
  • We fixed an issue that could result in the Windows Update Settings page showing progress dots but never loading.
  • We fixed an issue where navigating to Power and Sleep in Settings would crash Settings.
  • We fixed the issue where a random toggle that didn’t do anything was appearing under Settings > Personalization > Lock screen.
  • We fixed an error resulting in some Insiders recently seeing an error when trying to add a password to a local account that was created without a password.
  • We fixed an issue where if you opened the Pinyin IME settings via Search, the Settings page would be unexpectedly blank.
  • We fixed an issue that could result in your desktop background going black after snapping an app to the side of your screen.
  • We fixed an issue where some of the text in Snipping Tool wasn’t displaying correctly.
  • We fixed an issue causing the Handwriting Input Panel to not work for pen input on ARM64 PCs.
  • We fixed an issue impacting clipboard history reliability.
  • We fixed an issue resulting in characters being duplicated in certain apps when typing with the Korean IME.
  • We fixed an issue resulting in not being able to insert composition strings when typing with an IME after copying and pasting a text box in PowerPoint.
  • We fixed an issue resulting in key events being lost when renaming files in File Explorer while typing with an IME.
  • We fixed an issue where when typing with the Japanese or Chinese IMEs in certain apps that have their own UI for IME candidates, the IME candidates were not displayed in the app’s UI.
  • The fix we mentioned in Build 21327 to address an issue where a toggled key on the touch keyboard had the wrong background color is now rolling out to all Insiders in the Dev Channel.
  • We fixed an issue causing an increase in login time in the previous flight.
  • We fixed an issue resulting in some Insiders finding that boot time was longer in the previous flighting.
  • We fixed an issue resulting in the network button on the login screen not working and potentially crashing.
  • We fixed an issue causing some logins to hang on a black screen. If you continue to see a similar problem, please file a new feedback in Feedback Hub.
  • We fixed an issue that could result in freezes when watching videos in Chromium-based browsers in recent Dev Channel builds.

  Known issues

  • We’re looking into reports of the update process hanging for extended periods of time when attempting to install a new build.
  • [News and interests] Pressing ESC key to dismiss an opened context menu in the flyout dismisses the whole flyout instead.
  • [News and interests] Sometimes the news and interests flyout cannot be dismissed with pen.
  • [ARM64] Insiders who installed the preview version of the Qualcomm Adreno graphics driver on the Surface Pro X may experience reduced brightness of the display. This issue is fixed with an updated version of the preview graphics driver at https://aka.ms/x64previewdriverprox. If you are experiencing this issue, please see the feedback collection for more information.
  • We’re investigating an issue where elements of Search (including the search box in File Explorer) are no longer displaying correctly in dark theme.
  • We’re working on a fix for an issue introduced in the previous flight impacting WSUS users where the “Check online for updates from Microsoft Update” option is greyed out. If you are impacted, you can run the following command from an elevated Command Prompt to set the reg key so that scan will check Microsoft servers:
    • reg add “HKLM\Software\Microsoft\WindowsUpdate\UX\Settings” /f /v ScanMicrosoftOnly /t REG_DWORD /d 0x01

  Then click the regular “Check for updates” button in Windows Update Settings. Please note, if the scan needs to be done repeatedly the reg key will need to be re-added each time, as scanning reads and erases the key.

  • Due to an issue with migrating the shortcuts into the new Windows Tools location, This PC shows up with the display name “computer.” We already have a bug fix on the way to address this issue.
  • Some non-administrative apps, such as 3D Viewer and Print 3D, that were previously in the Windows Accessories folder are now in Windows Tools. These app shortcuts will be moved back into Start with an upcoming bug fix. They are still searchable and accessible via Windows Tools in the meantime.
  • The Windows Camera App currently does not respect the default brightness setting set via the new Camera Settings page.
  • Some cameras currently may not support adjustment in the Camera Settings App when the camera is also in use by another app.
  • Accessing the virtual GPU is broken for Windows and Linux guests, adding a vGPU to a VM will have no effect and the VM will continue running with software rendering.
  • [ADDED] Theme-aware splash screens have disappeared in this build. A fix is coming to re-enable this in a future flight.
  • [ADDED] In some cases, Auto HDR might not correctly enable for all eligible titles. To ensure that Auto HDR is enabled for all eligible titles, please visit Settings > Display > HDR settings and confirm that Auto HDR is turned on. If you still run into trouble, please reach out to us via the Feedback Hub, on our Twitter (@DirectX12), or on the DirectX Discord.
  • [ADDED 4/9] Split screen mode for Auto HDR does not work in this build; please look to the next build for a fix.
  • [ADDED 4/12] We’re working on a fix for an issue where in some cases user accounts will be migrated during the upgrade, but the user profile was not. This may occur if a device is abruptly restarted during the upgrade process. The user profile can be recovered from the Windows.old folder, or by simply rolling back to the previous version.

  Important Insider Links

  You can check out our Windows Insider Program documentation here, including a list of all the new features and updates released in builds so far. Are you not seeing any of the features listed for this build? Check your Windows Insider Settings to make sure you’re in the Dev Channel. Submit feedback here to let us know if things weren’t working the way you expected.

  If you want a complete look at what build is in which Insider channel, head over to Flight Hub. Please note, there will be a slight delay between when a build is flighted and when Flight Hub is updated.

  Thanks,
  Brandon
  (Amanda is enjoying some much-needed time off this week!)

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