Ex-Windows developer calls Windows 11 Start menu performance 'comically bad,' even with a Core i9 and 128GB of RAM

Windows 11's GUI
(Image credit: Microsoft)

Andy Young, a former Microsoft Windows developer, has taken to social media to complain about the performance issues he's been experiencing in Windows 11. (Neowin first reported on Young's remarks.) The ex-Windows developer showed off a demonstration of his Windows 11 system bugging out simply by typing something into the start menu search box. The performance is so bad that  Windows Enthusiast Young describes Windows 11 as an incomplete product that needs to be finished.

The problem Young elaborated on was with Windows 11's Start menu. In his video, opening up the Start menu's search function caused Windows 11 to bug out, forcing him to close and open the menu again. But even after opening the search panel again, it took Windows several seconds before his search results came up. This exact problem probably does not happen every single time he uses the Start menu, but he says this example of poor performance is what he has to deal with most of the time even though he is running a very speedy $1600 machine featuring an Intel Core i9 processor and 128GB of RAM.

Young clarified that he still loves Windows 11 regardless of the problems, partially due to the fact he helped build parts of the code. But, he continued saying that he wants Windows to be "as good as it once was" (probably harkening back to Windows 7).

"If data suggests the software you build frustrates a significant percentage of users, it means there's work left to be done," he wrote.

We are not surprised Young is having these issues. Since its debut in 2021, Windows 11 has gone through numerous bugs and performance problems including issues surrounding SSD performance problems, gaming performance degradation, and high CPU utilization issues in File Explorer. One of Windows 11's most infamous performance killers is VBS or Virtualization Based Security which can reduce gaming performance by up to 15%.

Young's problem specifically is something we've had experience with. We found that the culprit to slow Start menu search performance in Windows 11 is the online search results from Bing that are automatically provided whenever you type anything into the search bar. We found that disabling the search results massively improves performance and gets rid of those pesky online results you probably never asked for in the first place. If you want to disable online search results in the Windows 11 start menu, we have a tutorial for you to do just that.

Aaron Klotz
Contributing Writer

Aaron Klotz is a contributing writer for Tom’s Hardware, covering news related to computer hardware such as CPUs, and graphics cards.

  • 35below0
    These might help un-crap the Start Menu

    Remove Bing web results from search: https://www.makeuseof.com/windows-11-disable-bing-search/Delete News widget from Win 11: https://superuser.com/questions/1687419/how-to-delete-the-news-widget-in-windows-11
    Reply
  • Brian D Smith
    The old guard clings to what they know....resists change. automatically finding fault.
    Reply
  • -Fran-
    Brian D Smith said:
    The old guard clings to what they know....resists change. automatically finding fault.
    And the mobs that move with the new things often forget the basic elements of what is good and not.

    Change is not easy, but it doesn't have to be like this crap experience. You have a very bad take given the context and it has nothing to do with being old, young or mentally challenged.

    Regards.
    Reply
  • peachpuff
    Wait what... the search bar in the start menu has online search results built in? lololol
    Reply
  • ekio
    It's the entire OS that is comically bad...

    Horrible perfs, horrible min spec, horrible bloat, horrible blend of mixed UI generations.

    Horrible underlying engineering. (regedit, C:\\ path, mess in Win dir)

    Some major part of the UI are still the old hacks made 25 years ago.

    How many devs are working on that crap to make it so bad and badly updated, 2 ?
    Reply
  • USAFRet
    ekio said:
    It's the entire OS that is comically bad...

    Horrible perfs, horrible min spec, horrible bloat, horrible blend of mixed UI generations.

    Horrible underlying engineering. (regedit, C:\\ path, mess in Win dir)

    Some major part of the UI are still the old hacks made 25 years ago.

    How many devs are working on that crap to make it so bad and badly updated, 2 ?
    Which OS do you use?
    Reply
  • cknobman
    Performance tends to tank when you are trying to make something simple do too many things.
    Trying to fill it with suggested crap, ads, and other bs that doesnt belong there.
    Not to mention that they are probably data mining every freaking keystroke for revenue and/or "AI" learning.
    Reply
  • Alvar "Miles" Udell
    What's "comically bad" is that Microsoft refuses to do anything about it, even though I imagine it's the number one complaint most people will have with Windows 11, or at least in the top 3. Everyone knows they don't want to ditch it because they spent all that time and money rewriting it from scratch and it serves ads and generates revenue, but it's seriously as bad as Windows 8's forced full screen Start.

    Personally I use ExplorerPatcher and Windows 10's style taskbar and Windows 11 style Start menu with the recommended (and therefore ads) section disabled.
    Reply
  • jackt
    People still use windows ??? :ROFLMAO:
    Reply
  • USAFRet
    jackt said:
    People still use windows ??? :ROFLMAO:
    Most people, yes.

    What do you use, and for what?
    Reply