The performance of Windows 11 seems to be one of Microsoft’s main priorities when it comes to the new version of its operating system, and this is no secret, since the company itself has already confirmed it a few months ago. And yes, it is true that its minimum requirements are higher than those of its predecessor, although most problems in this regard have not been related so much to the performance of the equipment, but to the presence (or absence) in them of a TPM module to increase system security.
In any case, and as we can read in Windows Latest, Microsoft is already testing a new function called, not so much to improve the performance of Windows 11, as to optimize it based on the casuistry specific to each user. And it is that, when talking about the performance of the system, something that we must always remember is that this not only depends on the operating system, but also on the applications that are executed in it, on the use that these make of the resources and, of course, of the tools provided by the system to minimize their impact.
And this is more complicated than it may seem, because the response that a user expects from a certain application is not the same as that of another person. The clearest example, without a doubt, are web browsers, the main consumers of resources today. For some users, who use them intensively, it is obviously necessary that they can take as many system resources as they need. However, there are many other cases in which this high consumption is due to the increasingly widespread custom of keeping one or more windows open with endless tabs open in the background.
Thus, the operating system, in this case Windows 11, needs to know how high a priority a process is for a user. But on the other hand, you can’t be constantly asking questions about it, of course. Thus, the option they are proposing, also called “Efficiency mode” , proposes a solution that I personally find very interesting, and it is none other than being able to use the Task Manager to tell Windows 11 that we don’t want a certain app to keep hogging resources at a certain time.
Image: WindowsLatest
The approach is very interesting, since what Windows 11 will offer, through the Administrator, is the possibility of substantially reducing the priority of processes, so that they are paused and, therefore, stop immediate consumption of resources by them. Thus, the result that we will obtain, in terms of performance, will be close to the one currently provided by the “End task” option, but with the difference, a great difference, that with this new function we will be able to recover said application exactly in the point where it stopped when we reduced its priority to the minimum.
There are several scenarios in which this future feature of Windows 11 seems especially useful, but I think the most notable is that of a laptop when it is disconnected from the power supply. In this case, with the efficiency mode, it will be possible to extend the battery life. And once connected to the charger again, it will be possible to give more priority to those processes that are more “guzzlers”.
Microsoft is currently testing this feature in Windows 11 Build 22557, and everything indicates that its arrival to all Windows 11 users will occur along with improvements to the Taskbar and other new features yet to be identified, hand in hand with Sun Valley 2, the second update of Windows 11 for this 2022.