When you get a new laptop or PC, it always starts up and responds quickly. But as you install apps, games and fill up the hard drive with music, documents and photos it can slow down and even take minutes to start up. There are many things that can make Windows slow, but you should be able to restore most of its original speed without spending any money at all.
But if your laptop or PC has a traditional hard drive rather than a modern SSD, then it can be well worth spending some money and buying an SSD: it's still the single most effective performance upgrade for most people.
Regardless of your computer's hardware, there are various things you can do to speed up Windows, and here are our top tips.
Get rid of startup programs
Part of the reason well-used PCs take so long to start is because of all the applications and utilities you've installed. Many automatically run when Windows starts up, yet most of them don't need to and should only use up resources when you actually need to use them.
At the right side of the taskbar, click the upwards-facing arrow to display the notification icons. Each is a program that loads with Windows. Some are essential - antivirus software for example - but others may not be. Right-click each one and if there is a Settings menu, select it and turn off the option to start automatically with Windows.
Some programs, such as Google Drive, can be manually started when they are needed instead of running all the time.
To disable all the other programs and 'helpers' apps that start with Windows, press Windows+R, type msconfig and click Ok. Select the Services tab, tick ‘Hide all Microsoft services' and see what's left.
There may be services you can live without and clearing the tick box prevents them from running. For example, Firefox works perfectly well without the Mozilla Maintenance Service.
On the Startup tab (use Task Manager - right-click on the taskbar and choose Task Manager in Windows 8 and Windows 10 to find this) are lots of programs that start with Windows. Knowing what to disable isn't easy, but you can use Google to search for items and see if they are necessary, useful or neither of those.
Check for malware and other nasties
It’s advisable to run a system scan to ensure that there are no erroneous pieces of software causing harm and slowing down your machine. If you rely on Windows Defender for your security then you’ll need to go to the Start Menu>Settings>Update and Security>Windows Defender then in the right hand panel scroll down until you see Open Windows Defender.
Click this and then in the next window on the right hand side there are options to run a Quick, Full, or Custom scan. Make sure you won’t need your PC for a little while and opt for the Full version.
Then click on Scan now. If Windows finds anything untoward it will let you know and suggest ways to deal with the issue.
If you use another antivirus package, such as AVG, Norton, McAfee, or similar, you’ll need to launch the program and find the option to perform a system scan. They are usually very easy to discover.
Tame the visual effects
Windows 10 is quite a pretty operating system, with various animations used throughout. While these visual effects afford a sense of style they can also be a source of ponderance on machines that are a little older. Thankfully they are easy to turn off.
Open the Windows Start Menu and type advanced system settings and select the top result. In the window that appears there is a section marked Performance, with a button for Settings.
Click this and a list of the various visual effects will appear. You can either untick the ones you think might be problematic, or simply select the Adjust for best performance option at the top. Remember to click OK to save the changes.
Reinstall Windows
The ultimate speed-up technique is to reinstall Windows. This removes all unwanted software that slows down the PC, erases adware and other malware, clears out junk files and so on.
A Windows disc is needed for old versions of Windows, but Windows 8 and 10 have a built in Refresh option that makes the job easy. In Windows 8 bring up the Charms bar on the right side of the screen and click Settings, Change PC settings.
Click Update and recovery, then Recovery. Under Refresh your PC without affecting your files, click Get started.
In Windows 10, click the cog icon on the Start menu to bring up the new Settings app. Click Update & security, then choose Recovery from the menu on the left. You'll see the 'Reset this PC' option on the right.
Free up disk space
Your PC's hard disk slows down as it fills up and uninstalling software helps to free up space giving more room for Windows to work faster. Disk space can be freed up in various ways, and we've written a full guide to finding and deleting large and duplicate files.
You can delete files manually, or install a utility (we recommend some in that guide) to do a deeper search and make the job quicker and easier. There's a right way and a wrong way to use these programs, though.
Select just a few items and clean them, making sure the app backs up the changes. If the PC is working OK, go ahead and clean a few more items, but if it isn't, restore the backup. Do not clean everything in one go because if something goes wrong you won't know where the problem is.
Upgrade your hardware
All of the techniques discussed so far for speeding up the PC take you only so far. They restore the original PC's performance, but this may not be sufficient. An old PC might not be capable of running the latest game or other software you want to use. A five year old model will struggle with the latest games, apps and operating system. For this reason, a hardware upgrade may be required and this will boost the PC's performance beyond its original specification and narrow the gap between your current PC and the latest ones.
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