In the 21st century, where the whole world is running after speed, the days when your computer plays games with you and lags behind, can be the most testing ones for your patience.
As we have become more technologically advanced with time, there has been an increase in the speed of almost everything. Nothing takes as much time as it used to. So when our computers take those extra few seconds to process something it becomes very tough for us to bear and, to be fair, could cost us a lot at times.
So, let's see how we can speed up windows in just 8 simple steps.
1. Uninstall Crapware
Yes, things are improving, but the unnecessary pre-installed software installed by the makers o your PC is still an issue with the new computers.
Some time ago we had seen a PC that had as many as 20 helper programs installed in it and these would pop up now and then and trouble the user and interrupt whatever was happening on the computer. Recently the number of these pre-installed software has been reduced by the companies. You can uninstall any unwanted app by just right-clicking on it and selecting uninstall. This will immediately uninstall the program. Uninstalling unwanted apps will speed up your PC.
If your PC is running slow, you can set some time aside just to clear out these junk apps. For this, you can go to the Control Panel, and inside the installed applications tab sort the applications as you wish and find the junk/unused applications and uninstall them.
2. Limit Startup Processes
A lot of the programs install side processes that start running just after the PC is booted and most of them you don't even need running all the time. Compared to Windows 7, Windows 10 provides a very easy way to limit what runs at startup - from the updated Task Manager.
The fastest way to bring on screen the Task Manager dialogue box is by pressing Ctrl+Shift+Esc. Then just move to the Startup tab, and here we will find all the programs that load at Windows startup. There is one column that also shows the start-up impact of each. It shows if the program is enabled to run at startup or not. To change this status just right-click on any entry. This will result in speed up Windows operations.
3. Clean Up Your Disk
Go to the Start menu, and write Disk Cleanup. This opens the Disk Cleanup utility which has been part of Windows for several generations now.
Disk Cleanup traces the unwanted junk like the temporary files, offline Web pages, and installer files on your PC and you could delete them all at once with this. Even your Recycle Bin could be holding a lot of deleted files, you can empty that too. But yes this will only have an effect on the speed if your drive is nearly full. It will speed up Windows PC really fast.
Make sure that your disk fragmentation is scheduled regularly by setting it up in the Optimize Drives tool. This you can find by typing the name in the Cortana search box.
4. Add More RAM
Although Windows 10 manages activities a lot more efficiently, still adding more memory can always speed up your PC. But many of the Windows devices today, like the Surface Pro tablets, don't allow adding RAM. Although gaming and business laptops still allow RAM upgrades, that is a rare phenomenon.
The bigger RAM makers' (Crucial, Corsair, Kingston) websites mostly offer product finders that tell you which type of RAM is supported by your PC and they have pretty reasonable prices. An 8GB high-performance DDR4 RAM comes at around $60.
5. Install an SSD Startup Drive
For using demanding applications like Adobe Photoshop you can use an SSD which will make them run faster. Even the Windows Store apps are easily moved from a spinning hard drive to an SSD in the Settings Apps and Features page.
To speed up Windows, you can replace your internal startup hard drive. An external SSD with a USB 3.0 connection will also give you a boost for the heavy applications that you run.
6. Check for Viruses and Spyware
Always use an antivirus to protect your system from viruses and malware. Although some antiviruses themselves are pretty heavy, some also have a lighter on system performance than others.
You can look for the best AVs online and go for them.
7. Change Power Settings to High Performance to Optimize Speed
If you want to save electricity, then this isn't for you but otherwise, you could head to the Settings app's System then to Power & sleep option, and then click on the Additional power settings link. Now, click on the dropdown arrow on the right side to "Show additional plans" and choose High Performance.
8. Turn Off Tips and Notifications
It may seem a little weird that a Tips article is asking you to do this but yes if you want to be very efficient with your computer speed you can filter the tips that are shown to you. The same can be done with the Notifications.
If it is not required to generate a notification all the time, Windows can work faster. You can just open the Settings app's Notifications & actions page and alter the notification settings. There will be a list of individual apps that can send notifications, and you can clear the ones you think are unnecessary.
If there are a lot of these, in the list you can find the sources from which you have no need to be notified. You'll be surprised by the change you will get to see in terms of speed.
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