Windows Slow to Open Apps? Install the Update You Already Have — and Actually Restart
Microsoft just fixed a real slowdown in how Windows launches apps — and the fix is already sitting in your update queue. The flashy speed switch in test builds is a trap: it only works on processors that don't exist yet.
You click an app and wait. You click it again, wondering if the first click even registered. Then both instances open at once, and you're annoyed at the computer instead of doing the thing you sat down to do. It's the complaint I hear more than any other — why does Windows take so long to open an app? — and this week, for once, the answer is boring and free. Microsoft has spent the last six months chasing that exact complaint, and the fix is already in the update channel. Not a future release. Not a new PC. An update you probably already have waiting.
The free fix: update, then actually restart
- Open Settings, then Windows Update.
- Install everything it offers.
- Restart when it asks — and mean it. The fix is not finished until you restart.
That's the whole fix for the most common version of this problem. If you've been putting off the restart for days (no judgment — everyone does), this is the week to stop putting it off.
The 20% claim, honestly
Microsoft says Windows is now up to 20% more responsive, from boot through Start, File Explorer, Search, and Edge. That number deserves a pinch of salt: it's a company claim, not an independent benchmark. But the direction is real, and the mechanism makes sense — Windows now reuses processes that are already running instead of starting from scratch every time it launches an app. Less starting over, less waiting.
The speed switch you should NOT chase
Here's where you should not get excited. A test build of Windows that appeared this week includes a switch for something called Advanced Performance Extensions, or APX, which Microsoft describes as better performance. It sounds like exactly what a slow PC needs. It isn't — not for any computer you can buy today.
APX doubles the number of fast storage slots inside the processor, so programs shuffle less data back and forth to memory. But it only works on processors that don't exist yet. Your current processor, Intel or AMD, cannot use it at all. The first consumer chips expected to support it are Intel's upcoming Nova Lake family.
So if anyone tells you to join the Windows Insider program to flip this switch, don't. You would be testing unfinished software for a feature your hardware cannot run. The real speed win this week is the update you already have waiting — not a test build, and not a new chip.