Animations are a part of any modern operating system, including Windows 10. While they do make the UI appear smoother, disabling them does speed up its response time. If you’d rather have a more responsive UI, it is possible to disable animations in Windows 10.
You’re probably going to be surprised to see how many effects are enabled in Windows 10 just to make the UI more visually pleasing. They are practically everywhere: when opening and closing apps, on the Start Screen, sliding combo boxes, and the list goes on.
How to disable animations in Windows 10
To disable animations in Windows 10 you must first open the Run dialog, which you can do by pressing the Win + R hotkeys.
In the Run dialog text box type the text below then hit the OK button:
SystemPropertiesAdvanced
The Advanced System Properties window will open. In the Advanced tab, click on the Settings button in the Performance section.
This will open the Performance Options dialog.
At the top of the window, there are three preset options.
Let Windows choose what’s best for my computer – the system will automatically enable and disable effects depending on your computer’s hardware configuration.
Adjust for best appearance – this option will enable all visual effects.
Adjust for best performance – if you choose this option, all visual effects will be disabled.
The “Custom” option lets you manually enable or disable visual effects from the list below. As soon as you enable or disable an effect, the “Custom” option will be automatically selected.
The easiest way to disable animations in Windows 10 is to check the box next to the “Adjust for best performance” option.
As soon as you select it, all listed options will be disabled. Nevertheless, the options listed below (and shown in the image above) are not related to animations so you should manually enable them:
- Show thumbnails instead of icons
- Show translucent selection rectangle
- Show window contents while dragging
- Smooth edges of screen fonts
- Use drop shadows for icon labels of the desktop
Press “Apply” and then “OK”.
There’s also an option for playing animations in Windows available in the Settings app. To disable it, open Settings and navigate to Ease of Access -> Other Options.
Disable the option called “Play animations in Windows”. That’s it!
From now on, the system UI should be more responsive.
