Welcome back, in today’s video I’ll be showing you how to make apps and programs
open and load faster on a Windows 10 PC or laptop. The methods in this video should help
decrease loading times on your apps and games and we’ll be covering methods that help
both all apps and some of the specific ones that you choose. Some of the methods may or
may not help so feel free to skip some of them and even revert the changes you’ve
made. We’ll be covering enough possible solutions that hopefully at least a few of
them will help. Remember to leave a like and feel free to subscribe if the video helps,
let’s get into the methods. I’ll be assuming that none of your apps
and programs have any problems causing them to take a while to load, but if you think
this is the case then I would recommend reinstalling or repairing the program. Also, there is a
chance that viruses could be causing problems, so make sure you have scanned your PC.
Moving on, the first thing to try is to make sure that there aren’t any other programs
using the resources of your hardware that could be affecting the app you want to open.
This will be most noticeable just after starting your PC up. There are two things we can do
for this, first we’ll turn off some of the start-up applications that will run automatically
when you start your PC. To do this, head to the task manager, you can get there by right
clicking on the taskbar and then by choosing task manager. In the task manager, find the
tab called start up, it should be the fourth option and click on it to show the list of
all the applications that will run automatically when you turn on your PC. You’ll need to
go down the list and look for any programs you know you don’t use, or those that you
don’t use regularly. Disabling them in here won’t make them stop working, however they
might take a bit longer to run when you do want to use them. But of course, if you don’t
use them that often, this won’t make too much difference. To disable an application
in here, all you need to do is right click on it and then choose ‘disable’. It’s
helpful to look at the start up impact column to help make your decision on whether it’s
worth disabling them. You can always enable the program again by right clicking on it
and then selecting enable. The other way to stop background apps is to
first go to the main settings page by clicking on the cog icon within the start menu and
then in the settings, choose privacy. Now scroll down on the list on the left until
you find the option called background apps and then click on that. You should now see
the list of apps that can run in the background on your PC. Use the toggle switches to turn
off any apps that you don’t use. You should notice a boost in overall performance, but
it will take longer to run these apps when you want to use them so only turn off those
that you don’t use often. The next method will be to change some of
the power settings on your PC. You may be able to increase performance by changing the
power plan. To edit these settings, first go to the control panel. You can get there
by searching for it in the search bar. In the control panel, go to system and security
and then find power options from the list. If you haven’t already, you might find that
turning on high performance will help speed up your PC, but you will increase power consumption,
so if you are using a laptop, this will shorten the battery life. Whilst you’re in these
settings, click on where it says “choose what the power buttons do” from the options
on the left and then click “change settings that are currently unavailable” in blue.
Make sure “turn on fast start-up” is selected. If it is already, then you don’t need to
change anything. These power settings changes should improve PC performance in general and
improve loading times. Another method that might help is to free
up space on your PC, especially if you are near capacity. I have a video that will show
you ten easy ways to free up space so click the card onscreen now to watch that one after
this. The next method is to make sure the apps you
want to start up quickly are set to high priority. This is only a temporary fix that you would
need to do each time you load up the app and it should help if the app stops responding
or if sometimes it takes a while to load. To do this, open the program first and then
go to the task manager again, the method to get there was to right click on the task bar
and then choose task manager. In here, go to the details tab this time and then look
for the program you are opening. It might not be called the exact same name, but you
should recognise it when you find it. Once you have found it, right click on it and then
hover over set priority and finally choose high from the list that appears.
The next thing to try is to change a tag on the shortcut of the app. This one may or may
not work depending on the app and it can actually decrease loading times in some cases. If you
don’t notice an improvement or it makes it worse, then just follow the method again
to get it back to normal. It’s worth a try and what you need to do is first find the
shortcut of the app you want to load up. You can find it by searching for it in the search
bar, for example if we search for audacity it should say app below its name. Right click
on it and then choose open file location. Find it within the file explorer that opens
and right click on it and then choose properties. In this new window, look for the box called
target, it should have the file destination in it. We will be adding some text into this
box and if you are unsure, you could screenshot or take a picture of what it looked like before
in case you need to revert the changes. Enter your cursor to the furthest right position
of this box, it should be after the speech marks. Now type in, “space” “forward
slash” “p” “r” “e” “f” “e” “t” “c” “h” “colon” “1”.
I’ll leave this in the description too if you want to copy and paste it. Make sure it
looks like it does it my box and then click on apply. You might also need to confirm that
you have admin privileges after this. Now try running the application and as I mentioned,
there is a chance this won’t work and there will be an error message like this with Audacity.
If that is the case, follow the method again and then delete the added text we put into
the target box, so that it ends with the speech mark just like before.
The final method I have is to get an SSD or solid-state drive if you don’t have one
already. I’ve left this to the end as of course it would be nice to avoid purchasing
extra hardware if we can improve loading times without it but if your programs are still
taking ages to load and you have quite an old machine, an SSD should yield huge improvements.
If you do get one, you will need to install the operating system and the apps you use
most often onto it for the benefits. And so that is how to make apps and programs
open and load faster on a Windows 10 PC or laptop. For even more ways to speed up your
PC in general, click the card onscreen now showing you how to do just that. You should
be able to zoom through that video as we’ve already covered some of the methods today.
If you have any questions, then let me know in the comments below and if you did find
today’s video helpful remember to leave a like and feel free to subscribe for more
tips in the future. Be sure to stick around to see some of my other videos that you might
be interested in. Thanks so much for watching and I will see you in another video!