Windows Update Microsoft Wants To Bring SteamOS-Level of Gaming Performance To Windows 11, While Cutting Back AI Bloat With “K2” Project Hassan Mujtaba • at EDT Add on Google Microsoft is working on a new Windows 11 project called "K2," which will reduce bloat while increasing overall performance, including gaming. Microsoft Windows 11 "K2" Project Will Be A Step In The Right Direction, Aims To Reduce AI, Bloat, & Improve Overall Performance, Including Gaming The Windows 11 operating system has had its ups and downs. The general backlash has been there since the beginning, with features such as Recall and an integral focus on AI. These have had a negative impact, and with the ongoing "Windows Update" issues, the current Microsoft OS is far from perfect. Related Story TSMC Doubles Down on 2nm With Five Fabs Ramping at Once, Output Set to Eclipse 3nm by 2x The software giant is working to regain the trust of its Windows OS users with a new project called "K2". Windows Central reports that this new project is expected to address some of the biggest complaints that are associated with Windows 11. These include cutting back the AI features, reducing bloat, & overall improving the performance and stability. K2 Marks A Fundamental Shift In How Microsoft Works on Windows OS It is stated that Microsoft has so far followed an agile method of workflow. They pushed out new features as fast as they could without proper testing. This resulted in poor quality, but that has changed in "K2". And it is not like verification or testing wasn't done before K2; it's just that with K2, the process is going to get a whole lot better to maintain a higher level of quality. Internally, Microsoft has also discovered some critical areas where they lag behind the competition in terms of performance. These include applications such as File Explorer and Games. The company rolled out various updates, but despite that, benchmarks have shown Windows 10 to be faster than Windows 11. Microsoft Wants To Offer Steam-OS-like or Better Gaming Performance Gamers are a key part of the Windows 11 ecosystem, and for this, Microsoft is said to view SteamOS as the benchmark. Microsoft is working to optimize the performance to match the same levels as SteamOS and has internally estimated to outperform the OS within two years. The aforementioned File Explorer update will also deliver big improvements, offering a speedier file navigation interface versus the existing clunky design. Windows Update will also require a restart once every month rather than every time a new update lands. Another cool feature the K2 is expected to give users is the ability to only select critical hardware drivers for installation, leaving out MS updates. Memory usage is also expected to see a drop as the company aims to reduce additional bloat from the OS. AI features are also going to be cut off in a major way. Microsoft recently released a new update to its preview channel, which allowed the addition of AI Agents to the Windows 11 Taskbar. While these may be useful for AI tasks, the vast majority of general PC users don't require such features, and they take up valuable resources. Windows "K2" Update Sounds Too Good To Be True, But We'll See Other features that are being highlighted for Microsoft Windows 11's K2 are UI enhancements and new features. All of this does sound great on paper, but we will have to wait and see if Microsoft delivers on even half of these. Windows 11 K2 won't be a separate OS rollout but will be an iterative release to the Windows 11 ecosystem through updates and patches. Hopefully, it can let users decide what they want out of their PCs rather than giving unnecessary features that no one ever uses. News Source: Windows Central About the : A Software Engineer by training and a PC enthusiast by passion, Hassan Mujtaba serves as 's for hardware section. With years of experience in the industry, he specializes in deep-dive technical analysis of next-generation CPU and GPU architectures, motherboards, and cooling solutions. His work involves not only breaking news on upcoming technologies but also extensive hands-on reviews and benchmarking. Follow on Google to get more of our news coverage in your feeds. Deal of the Day Further Reading Intel Xeon 6 With AMX Accelerate Microsoft’s Azure Local, Scaling Deployments To 1000s of Servers Samsung 18-Day Strike Could Cut-Off DRAM & NAND Output 4%, & Recovery Will Take 2-3 Weeks TSMC 3nm & 2nm Wafer Output To Be Boosted By 20% 2026 As Supply Crunch Continues OpenAI Building A Custom Smartphone Processor With Qualcomm and MediaTek, Targeting 300-400 Million Annual Smartphone Shipments to Dethrone Apple’s iPhone Read all on Microsoft Wants To Bring SteamOS-Level of Gaming Performance To Windows 11, While Cutting Back AI Bloat With “K2” Project
