If you’ve noticed a performance decline since updating to Windows 11, you’re not alone. An issue back in October affected AMD Ryzen CPUs, but now it’s devices with a built-in SSD that are suffering.
As Beta News reported on 8 December, read and write speeds on NVMe SSDs have declined significantly for many people updating from Windows 10. All signs point to the problem being widespread, but there is a fix.
In fact, it’s available in an update released by Microsoft back on 22 November. One of the fixes listed for the KB5007262 patch says it “addresses an issue that affects the performance of all disks (NVMe, SSD, hardisk) on Windows 11 by performing unnecessary actions each time a write operating occurs”. Something known as the “NTFS USN journal” must be enabled for issues to arise, but this is always the case within the C: drive.
However, it’s only currently available as a preview. Unlike regular monthly security updates, that means it won’t automatically arrive on your device. But for people who’ve noticed a significant performance decline since updating to Windows 11, it’s worth installing manually.
How to install the Windows 11 KB5007262 update
Fortunately, the process for installing this patch is relatively simple:
- Open Settings and choose ‘Windows Update’ from the left pane
- Click ‘Check for updates’
- If the KB5007262 update is available, wait for it to automatically download and install
- Restart your device to apply the changes
If the update isn’t appearing for you in Settings, you can download it directly from the official Microsoft Update Catalog instead. Make sure you choose the x64 version unless you have a device with an ARM-based processor.
To see what else has been fixed in the KB5007262 update, see the full release notes on the Microsoft website.
A version of this article was originally published in German on our sister site, PC-Welt.