Improving launch speed in Windows 11
Microsoft has announced the launch of a new feature known as "Accelerated app launch" within the optional October 2026 update for Windows 11 (KB5127936). This feature is a technical step aimed at simplifying the app launch process, with Microsoft Edge being the first supported application to benefit from it.
What changes in practice?
The new feature relies on changing the mechanism for checking the application's status when it is opened. Previously, Windows had to initiate an intermediary process to check if the browser was already running before opening it, which caused noticeable slowness, especially during multitasking. With the new feature, the browser sends a registration request to the system when it is first run, allowing Windows to find these registrations immediately when any link is clicked later.
Preliminary figures indicate an improvement in Edge's launch speed of up to 15% under normal conditions, and this percentage may reach up to 33% under high device resource pressure and multitasking.
Why does this news matter?
The importance of this update is not limited to the Edge browser alone, as Microsoft has confirmed that it is working on contributing this work to the open-source Chromium project. This means that other Chromium-based browsers will be able to benefit from this technology to improve the overall user experience on Windows 11. Reports also indicate that the company is working on expanding the scope of this feature to include opening PDF files, which enhances the system's efficiency in handling files and applications in general.
It is noted that this feature requires compatibility between the application and the operating system; therefore, it will be available to users who have installed the latest update, and its positive effects will appear after the browser is run for the first time in the background.