Windows 11 update kills hidden trick for faster NVMe driver

Registry tweaks are some real “power user” stuff for Windows. While just about anyone can do them, and they’re often offered up as solutions to weird issues, you’d be unwise to go digging in the registry unless you really know what levers you’re pulling.

A recent tweak that gave a substantial boost to users with NVMe storage drives has apparently been shut down by a Windows 11 update.

The registry tweak in question enabled a native NVMe driver (instead of routing it through a translation layer). This option is technically created and endorsed by Microsoft itself… but not for Windows 11.

The native driver is a feature of Windows Server 2025 that was introduced late last year. But the option also exists in Windows 11—or at least it did before the latest update, so for the last few months speed-hungry power users have enabled it using said registry tweak. According to Microsoft’s own promotional materials, it could boost input/output operations per second (IOPS) by up to 80 percent and significantly lower CPU usage.

Sadly, it seems Microsoft has closed this particular loophole, either intentionally or otherwise. First noticed by members of the My Digital Life forum and reported by Neowin, the particular tweaks seem to have been disabled in Windows 11. The reason is probably the “find out” half of this equation: Enabling the unintended native driver meant that some storage tools like Samsung Magician could stop working. It’s possible that it could cause BitLocker issues, too.

There are still other workarounds, and I can hardly blame anyone for trying to get a little faster performance out of their storage, especially since it’s gotten insanely expensive. But the hope seems to be that Microsoft will implement the native driver more fully in a later Windows 11 update. Perhaps after it adds all those user-facing enhancements and stops badgering us all to use Copilot.