KB5089573: Microsoft shuts down critics, confirms Windows 11 "low latency" performance fix

Microsoft's upcoming Windows 11 update KB5089573 will boost app and system responsiveness by reducing latency.

Back in February of 2025 when we tested Windows 11 24H2 performance vs 23H2, we saw big gains in certain tests. However the overall takeaway was that the two versions were mostly identical peformance-wise, and people have continued to complain about the sluggishness they can sometimes feel on the desktop, even on Windows 11 25H2. As such, earlier this year, Microsoft promised it was going to fix those issues, and this month, it surfaced that the company has been working on a "low latency profile" option to help apps launch faster. The feature certainly works as we have seen in early testing.

With the latest Windows 11 Insider release preview build under KB5089573, Microsoft has confirmed that such a feature is indeed rolling out. In the changelog the company says "this update accelerates app launch and core shell experiences such as Start menu, Search, and Action Center," and this also means that the feature will be rolling out soon to all users (non-Insiders too) with the upcoming C-release update that will also be published with the same KB.

Interestingly, Microosft has also confirmed another low-latency fix with the update as it notes improved Windows Biometric Service (WBS) or WinBio performance when running Windows Hello authentication. The company says, "this update optimizes the WinBio service to help reduce latency when resuming after Modern Standby." It's great to see Microsoft further improve Modern Standby as Neowin had recently exclusively reported on the updated Modern Standy settings the tech giant introduced on Windows 11 24H2 and 25H2.

It is noteworthy that this year Microsoft has previously already rolled out other performance upgrades. Interestingly, Microsoft had to defend itself against criticism of its low latency profile feature due to the nature of how it works. Scott Hanselman, the company's VP and Member of Technical Staff of Microsoft/GitHub, took to X in order to explain how there's nothing wrong with the approach.

He said, "All modern operating systems do this, including macOS and Linux. It's not "cheating"; this is how modern systems make apps feel fast: they temporarily boost the CPU speed and prioritize interactive tasks to reduce latency. ... Your smartphone already does this. Constantly. Every touch wakes cores, boosts clocks, renders a frame, then drops back to idle milliseconds later. You’ve discovered dynamic frequency scaling."

On the positive side, more improvements are in the pipeline, and these are related to software-side optimizations and not based on hardware alone.

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Posted Friday 15 May 2026 at 2:52 pm AEST (my time).

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