If you find your computer becomes real slow and sluggish to use after a Windows Update has been performed, this blog post might provide the solution to get your computer running quickly again.Â
Recently my Lenovo laptop running Windows 11 kept displaying a pop-up message telling me I needed to restart my computer, to complete an update. It gave me options, including the option to pre-schedule the restart of my computer. I chose this option and set it for 4am.
I therefore left my laptop on overnight.
The next morning, I went to use my laptop, only to find it was REALLY slow to use. Unbearably slow! For example:
- It was taking over 5 seconds for Windows Explorer to display
- Opening a Web Browser like Google Chrome too about the same amount of time.
- The mouse-pointer was lagging.
- Outlook was terribly slow
EVERYTHING WAS SLOW!
I was of course annoyed and frustrated.
I Googled and tried a few usual things – eg:
- Restarting the laptop
- Turing the laptop off and on
- Checking the Graphics Card Drivers
- Considering doing a Disk Clean-up
Nothing worked.Â
Thankfully our IT Systems Admin person knew the solution and it worked! My laptop is running normally again.Â
Below is what fixed the issue for me. I can’t guarantee it’ll fix the issue if your computer has slowed down after a Windows 11 update, but the below steps might be worth trying:
These steps might fix the issue if your Windows 11 computer slows down after an update:
1. Go to the ‘Start’ menu and then click ‘Settings’. The ‘Settings’ pop-up window should then appear.
2. Then click the ‘Windows Update’ link in the ‘top right’ of the pop-up screen (refer to the below screenshot)
3. From within the ‘Windows Update screen, see if there are any Updates that need doing. If so, do them, then reboot your computer.
4. Go back to the same ‘Windows Update’ pop up screen within ‘Settings’. Then click on ‘Advanced Options’ (screenshot below)
5. It will now display options including ‘Optional Updates’. Click this link. (see the below screenshot).
6. From within this screen you might see som ‘optional updates’ that you can choose from. I selected all of the ones I saw (screenshot below). To select them I had to ‘tick the box’ to the left of each one. I think clicked the ‘Download and Install’ button. This took a while. Once each was complete, I then restarted my computer.
Low and behold, my computer started running at its usual speed. It fixed the issue!
As I have said, this may not fix the issue for you, but it might be worth trying.
