10 Tips to Speed Up Your Computer (Windows)
This little guide should help tweak your system so it runs faster and doesn’t use up as much resources as before. Of course you can boost your system’s performance with hardware upgrades too (e.g. adding RAM) but that will be covered in another guide. So here are ten tips to speed up your computer (Windows XP and above):
1. Disk cleanup
This handy program comes with Windows and identifies files you don’t need anymore, which can be safely deleted (e.g. temporary internet files and optional Windows components you don’t use). To access the program:
Click Start, point to All Programs, point to Accessories, point to System Tools, and then click Disk Cleanup. If several drives are available, you might be prompted to specify which drive you want to clean.
On the first tab you can check all the temporary and unused files that need to be cleaned up. On the second tab you can remove Windows components and installed programs you aren’t using anymore.
2. Disk defragmenting
Imagine you’re at work and you take all the documents and tools you work with frequently, scatter them randomly all over your desktop and into some drawers. Now, searching for each document and tool before you could use it would slow you down immensely, wouldn’t it? Over time, installing and removing programs does the same thing to your hard drive(s) and Windows slows down because it needs more time to search for and access the data you or a program request. There is a handy Windows tool to “tidy” up your disk called Disk Defragmenter:
Click Start, point to All Programs, point to Accessories, point to System Tools, and then click Disk Defragmenter.
TIP: It’s best to let this run at night when you sleep as it usually takes a lot of time to finish.
3. Remove spyware
“Spyware” is a program that runs on your computer and gathers information about you, without your knowledge. It can be used to display advertise to you for example. The following signs can be indicators for spyware on your computer:
- your computer is slow
- data is being uploaded and downloaded without you doing anything in your browser (nor downloading anything)
- when you open your task-manager you see processes you haven’t seen before
- advertise is displayed to you randomly (e.g. underlining words) where you haven’t seen ads before
One of the best (free) programs to detect and remove spyware is Ad-Aware.
4. Turn off animations
Ever since Windows 95 was introduced – with every new version of the OS – more and more animations were added to windows. Those effects are supposed to improve the looks of the user interface and many people get the impression that the overall functionality of the current Windows version has improved because e.g. windows fade and have neat “special effects”. But actually this falls under the category of clutter that eats up a lot of resources and if you can live without those effects, your system will be much faster:
Right click on your desktop and open the display settings. There navigate to the “theme” tab. Inside the first drop down menu (for themes) choose “Windows classic” and click on “Apply“. After that you can click on “Effects” and remove any of the items on the list to boost your system’s performance.
5. Do not use large images as wallpaper
Since it needs to be loaded frequently it slows down your computer.
6. Clean up your desktop
The more items and programs you have on your desktop the slower your computer gets. Rather make a few folders on your desktop (if you like accessing things from there) and put everything inside.
7. Increase virtual memory
Virtual memory is the memory that’s used on your hard drive every time your RAM reaches its capacity. Increasing the allocated amount of space for this can help to speed up processes.
> Navigate to your Control Panel
> Click on “System”
> Click on the “Advanced” tab
> Under Performance click “Settings”
> Click on the “Advanced” tab
> At the very bottom you’ll be able to change the amount of virtual memory allocated to your system. The rule of thumb is to use 1.5 times the amount of your system’s RAM.
8. Don’t store files on the main drive
If you can, don’t store many files on the drive on which your Windows installation is running (usually C:\).
9. Remove programs from startup
When you install a program there is often an option which lets you add the program to your startup menu. This means that every time you boot Windows, all programs in your startup menu will be executed automatically and will run in the background – sometimes without you noticing. The annoying thing is: some programs don’t even ask before adding themselves. To remove all unwanted/unnecessary programs from auto startup, do this:
Click Start > Run and type “msconfig” at the prompt. Click the Startup tab and look at everything that is booted along with windows. CAREFUL, some of the listed programs are necessary drives. Google each of the .exe file names to get more information before you actually disable them.
10. Turn off system restore
Deactivating system restore can free up a lot of space on your hard drive and hence speed up your computer’s performance (of course it’s an individual choice if you need this feature or not):
Click on Start, point to All Programs, choose Accessories and point to System Tools. There pick System Restore and under “edit system restore settings” deactivate system restore by checking the displayed box.
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Girl Goes Tech (GGT) is about a 26-year-old, female tech-addict exploring her geeky side and writing about social media, mobile trends and applications.