How to Completely Disable ‘Smooth Scrolling’ via Group Policy in Microsoft Edge

Microsoft Edge incorporates a feature known as “Smooth Scrolling,” designed to provide a fluid, animated transition when a user scrolls down a webpage using a mouse wheel, trackpad, or keyboard arrows. While aesthetically pleasing, smooth scrolling forces the browser’s rendering engine (and by extension, the system’s GPU) to continuously recalculate and redraw the visual layout of the page during the scrolling animation. In specialized environments—such as high-density VDI (Virtual Desktop Infrastructure) deployments, remote desktop sessions over constrained bandwidth, or older hardware utilized in strict kiosk scenarios—this constant repainting generates unnecessary CPU/GPU overhead and significant network latency. Forcing an instantaneous, non-animated “jump” scroll drastically reduces computational overhead and bandwidth utilization.

This guide explains how to completely disable ‘Smooth Scrolling’ via Group Policy in Microsoft Edge, enforcing a strict performance-optimized model where all visual scrolling animations are cryptographically blocked.

Disable Smooth Scrolling via Group Policy

To enforce a strict block that disables the smooth scrolling animation engine globally across the browser, we must deploy an administrative template. Note that this requires Windows 11 Pro, Enterprise, or Education editions.

1. Log into Windows 11 with an Administrator account.
2. Press the Windows Key + R to open the Run dialogue box.
3. Type gpedit.msc and press Enter to launch the Local Group Policy Editor.
4. In the left-hand navigation pane, strictly follow this exact path:

   Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Microsoft Edge

5. In the right-hand pane, locate the policy named Enable smooth scrolling.
6. Double-click the policy to open its configuration window.
7. Select the radio button next to Disabled. (By explicitly disabling this policy, we instruct the Edge compositor to permanently sever the animation loop associated with scroll events, forcing the browser to instantly render the next block of content without fluid transitions).
8. Click Apply, then click OK.

Verify the Configuration Lockdown

Group Policy changes require the browser to read the registry upon its next launch.

Close all active instances of Microsoft Edge. To force the policy update immediately across the OS, open Command Prompt as Administrator and run gpupdate /force. To verify the restriction is active, open Microsoft Edge and navigate to a long, text-heavy webpage (such as a Wikipedia article). Use the mouse wheel or the Page Down key to scroll. The browser will instantly jump to the new section without any gliding animation, confirming that the rendering engine is now operating in a strictly optimized, low-overhead configuration.