Solved Returning to Win 11

Windows XP/Vista/7/8/10 32-bit by default can use only 2.93GB RAM if you have onboard graphics sharing the system RAM. For systems with a discreet graphics card having its own separate memory, this is 3.25GB. However, you can run a little utility called patchpae3 and enable 32-bit Windows to use the full RAM, up to 128GB, installed. This for 4GB and onboard graphics is 3.9GB and a little less than the full RAM for anything above. Of course for systems with a discrete graphics card this means the full RAM, 4GB or whatever it is. 64-bit Windows can see the full RAM by default, up to 128GB for Windows 11 Home and up to 2048GB (2TB) for Windows 11 Pro.

Download the patchpae3 utility from here:


However, if your laptop has at least an Intel Core 2 Duo or Intel Atom 64-bit CPU with 2GB RAM, I encourage you to install Windows 11 and make it lighter. To make it lighter disable all visual effects such as transparency, fades, animations. Then disable all startup applications and unneeded non-Microsoft services, such as Google Update and similar. Keep free disk space in C: at least 1/3 of total partition size. Store your files on an external USB hard disk, don't fill the Windows disk or it will slow down the computer. Make sure you download and install the latest official drivers from manufacturer, don't rely entirely on Windows Update. Most importantly, update the graphics card drivers, if possible. You will see an improvement in performance. It doesn't have to be a Windows 10/11 driver, all Vista 64-bit or higher drivers work in 11, except certain Intel graphics drivers locked to install on Windows 7 64-bit only. For Intel graphics cards that only have a locked Windows 7 driver than doesn't install on Windows 8 and higher you can find some custom hacked versions that do install and improve performance, giving you also access to Intel Graphics Properties. Otherwise, let Windows Update install the stock Microsoft WDDM 1.0 (Vista) driver to be able to change the resolution to native 1024x600 or whatever that is. For any help don't hesitate to ask us.

quarkrad said:

Thank you all for your replies. I have gone ahead and ordered a new pc with win11 pre installed.

Click to expand...

Just in case you need some of this, in the future...

I gave up on Windows 11. Despite my Lenovo laptop having solid specs and Windows allowing me to update via Windows Update, I couldn’t tolerate the lag in the context menu when I right-clicked to open a folder. That was a major issue for me, and overall, I noticed my laptop—with 32GB of RAM and a dedicated 4GB GPU—running slower on Windows 11. On top of that, Lenovo doesn’t offer official drivers for W11, even though it's essentially the same system. By the way, my laptop will be three years old this March.

I [might] consider upgrading to W11 again in the future, but with how many of Microsoft’s updates feel more like "beta" versions due to ongoing issues, I’m leaning toward skipping it and giving W12 a try—assuming my system is powerful enough. Otherwise, I’ll buy a new desktop PC with W12, install W11 on my laptop, and only use it when traveling—not as my main machine.

@Sammy888 None of my own systems nor none I have set up for others have a lag in the right click menus, so I don't think your problem was the
Windows 11 OS. I think it was something specific to your machine...either a driver, some software, or a tweak you had made..

Sammy888 said:

I gave up on Windows 11. Despite my Lenovo laptop having solid specs and Windows allowing me to update via Windows Update, I couldn’t tolerate the lag in the context menu when I right-clicked to open a folder. That was a major issue for me, and overall, I noticed my laptop—with 32GB of RAM and a dedicated 4GB GPU—running slower on Windows 11. On top of that, Lenovo doesn’t offer official drivers for W11, even though it's essentially the same system. By the way, my laptop will be three years old this March.

I [might] consider upgrading to W11 again in the future, but with how many of Microsoft’s updates feel more like "beta" versions due to ongoing issues, I’m leaning toward skipping it and giving W12 a try—assuming my system is powerful enough. Otherwise, I’ll buy a new desktop PC with W12, install W11 on my laptop, and only use it when traveling—not as my main machine.

Click to expand...

By default Windows 11 context menu contains only a basic list and you have to click on "Show more options" to see the full list. The lag might be because File Explorer tries to determine which options will be on the basic list. I would try disabling the "Show more options" so that you always see the full list, like in Windows 10. This should speed things, unless you, like me, have added too many options in the context menu. This is no Windows 11 issue and you can use specific utilities to remove unwanted options from the context menu, apart from the obvious, uninstall the respective applications.


(There are other similar threads)

spapakons said:

By default Windows 11 context menu contains only a basic list and you have to click on "Show more options" to see the full list. The lag might be because File Explorer tries to determine which options will be on the basic list. I would try disabling the "Show more options" so that you always see the full list, like in Windows 10. This should speed things, unless you, like me, have added too many options in the context menu. This is no Windows 11 issue and you can use specific utilities to remove unwanted options from the context menu, apart from the obvious, uninstall the respective applications.

Click to expand...

Yes. This is partly to blame.

Initially I used a hack from this site to show me the full context menu and that slowed everything more. However, even when the context view option was limited (default) and I went to open any folder the lag to open it was around 3 seconds up to 5. I recall another poster in this forum echoed this delay. It's worth emphasizing this isn't the case with Windows 10.

Additionally, my W10 system mirrored my W11 and the context menu remains is minimal just like with W11. This the primary reason in switching back to Windows 10. Secondary was that applications took longer to load.

Cc: @glasskuter

Then it could be due to different default security settings (access rights or whatever) between Windows 10 and 11.