Is your Windows 10 computer running slow?
Follow these quick, easy, and free steps
to optimize Windows 10 performance for
any computer. Before we start it's a good
idea to create a restore point since
we'll be changing system settings. Go to
File Explorer. Right-click on This PC and
click Properties. Go to System Protection
then click Create. Let's call this Start.
Click Create and it successfully created the
restore point. Click close. If you need to
you can go back into the System Restore
and revert back to before the changes.
Click OK and close that window. The
second step is to make sure you've run
all your windows updates. Click on the
Start, go to Settings, scroll down to
Update & Security, and check for
updates. That looks good but if you have
any problems with stuck updates be sure
to check out the suggested video link
above. Once this is good go ahead and
close that window and you're ready to go.
Let's get started. To get Windows 10
running at its full potential let's go
back to File Explorer, right-click on
This PC, go to Properties, and choose
Advanced System Settings from the menu.
Choose settings and Adjust this for Best
Performance. I suggest you leave Smooth
Edges of Screen Fonts and Show
Thumbnails Instead of Icons checked.
Everything else should be turned off. If
you don't leave smooth edges of screen
fonts on your Internet Explorer and
Chrome browsers will look terrible. Hit OK.
While we're here go into the Startup and
Recovery Settings. If Windows 10 is your
only operating system on the computer
turn off this check box. That makes the
operating system boot immediately rather
than waiting for you to choose which
operating system you want to start with.
Hit OK and close that window.
Click on Start, go to Settings, into
System, choose Power & Sleep, and choose
Additional Power Settings. Change this
setting to Ultimate Performance if you
have a latest version of Windows 10. For
older versions go ahead and choose the
High Performance and then close those
windows. If you have a high-end graphics
adapter why not take advantage of it.
Click on Start, go to Settings, and to
System, and Display and scroll down until
you see Graphics Settings. Open that up
from the menu, pick Universal App and
select apps that are heavy graphics use.
For example, I'll do Microsoft edge. Click
Add. Now click on the entry it created
and go to Options. Notice this is set to
the system default but I could choose
high performance which changes it to the
NVIDIA GeForce graphics adapter that I
have installed on my computer. Hit save
and now do the same thing for any kind
of apps that are heavy graphics or video
editing or gaming related and you can
add those to the list and that forces
the graphics adapter to choose the high
performance one for those apps. Go ahead
close and you're set. Now let's make sure
our system configuration is maximizing
the performance of our Windows 10
computer. Click on Start in the menu,
scroll all the way down to the bottom
and under windows Administrative Tools
choose system configuration, Click on the
Boot tab. If you want to speed up the
boot process check this box. That
eliminates the GUI. Click on Advanced
Options. I've seen a number of videos
suggest turning this box on and
selecting the maximum number of
processors but that is wrong. You should
turn this box off which automatically
defaults to the maximum number of
processors in your computer. Hit OK and
go to the Services tab. Check this box to
hide all the microsoft services. Take a
look at this list and uncheck any of the
items that you don't believe are needed
and hit OK.
You can go ahead and restart now or wait
until other settings are done and then
restart your computer for those to go
into effect.
Let's adjust some annoying privacy
settings to speed up your computer. Click
on Start, go to Settings, choose Privacy,
and turn these four items off. Then click
on the Diagnostics and Feedback and set
this to Basic. That'll get rid of some
annoyances and improve the performance.
One thing that often slows down a
computer is a bunch of startup apps.
Let's check that. Right-click on the
Start button, go to Task Manager, and
click the Startup tab. Take a look at
this list and any applications you see
that you shouldn't have loaded. Click on
them and click the Disable button to get
rid of them. The less items you have in
this list the better and close. Other
applications you can clear out are under
the Start, Settings, Apps and under Apps
and Features scroll through this list
and take a look for anything that you
should get rid of. Anything that you
don't want click on it and do the
uninstall. That removes unwanted apps
that slow down your computer. For the
best performance in your Internet
browser click on Start, type in Internet
Options and choose it from the menu. Go
to the Programs tab and select Manage
Add-ons. Take a look through this list
and see if there's anything unusual that
you know you don't need, especially ones
that have names that you don't recognize
as a third party. Do the same under
Search Providers, Accelerators, and
Tracking Protection and disable any of
the items you know you don't want and
you're done. Close and hit OK. That'll
keep your Internet Explorer running
smooth. You can get another performance
boost from the disk cleanup. Click on
Start, scroll down again to the Windows
Administrative Tools, choose Disk Cleanup
and click OK on the C Drive. First step
is click on this Clean up system files
and hit OK on the C Drive again. Now from
this list select most of the items on
there.
Leave any out if you're concerned
and hit okay. Choose Delete Files and let
it work through the process. It may take
several minutes to complete but when
it's done it'll improve the
performance and clean up a lot of disk
space. Along with Disk Cleanup it's a
good idea to do defrag and optimization
of your hard drives.
Click on the Start, scroll down to the
Windows Administrative Tools again and
select Defragment and Optimize Drives.
Now you'll notice here I have a
solid-state drive on my C and D is a
regular hard disk. The solid-state drives
do not need any kind of optimization
because the technology does not require
it. It's only for spinning discs that it
requires this defragmentation so I'm
going to go ahead and click on the drive
D, do a quick analysis and then I'm going
to optimize that drive. With the newer
version of Windows 10 you can change the
settings so that this can be scheduled
on a weekly basis or sooner if you
prefer. If you're not using your computer
for gaming or you don't intend to record
video broadcast of your gameplay then
you should turn off the Game Bar. Click
on Start, go to Settings, and choose
Gaming from the menu. Under the Game Bar
turn off this Record Game Clips. Now
click on Game DVR and turn off this
function to record in the background
while you're playing a game. Both of
those features are designed for gamers
that like to push a button and record
that information but if you don't intend
to do that then it's a wasted resource
and you should turn it off. If you don't
intend to use Cortana you can gain some
performance by turning it off. Click on
Start, go to Settings, and choose Cortana
from the menu. Check this box to turn it
off and turn off these other options
that you see here as well. That'll
improve performance.
One of the limitations of Windows 10 is
when you're using 32-bit apps it's
limited to 4 gig of ram but if you have
more memory than that you can take
advantage of it by installing 64-bit
applications. As an example take a look
in your portal on office 365 and go to
Other Install Options. Under Office you
can go down here and select Advanced and
choose a 64-bit version for installation.
You'll probably have to uninstall your
32-bit in order to install the 64-bit
but this version gives you more memory
available to all the applications, which
is especially important for things like
Excel because it uses a large amount of
memory. So make sure you're using 64-bit
apps wherever possible. Iin order to use
64-bit apps you need to make sure you
have a 64-bit version of Windows. To
check that you can go to Start, Settings,
System, and go to the bottom of the list
and choose About. Scroll down and you'll
see the System Type as 64-bit operating
system. If it's 32 bit then
unfortunately, you can't install 64-bit
apps but you can upgrade to a 64-bit
version of Windows so that you have that
feature available. We saw earlier when
running the defrag that my Windows C
Drive was a solid-state hard drive. Using
a solid-state drive is one of the
biggest performance boosts you can have
on your computer. You will see
improvements all the way across the
board, from applications, browsing on the
internet, booting time. All the features
are much faster and it is the single
most important improvement to speed that
you can do to your computer. So consider
an SSD drive if you don't have one now
and always consider buying a computer
with SSD as the primary boot drive.
Finally take a look at the program
CCleaner. It's available at ccleaner.com.
It includes a home version for free and
you can upgrade and pay for a little bit
of additional services but it works really
well to run a scan and clean up a lot of
things in your computer that slow it
down.
You can choose to analyze and then run
the cleaner. CCleaner does a great job of
cleaning your system out. It's fast, it's
free, and it's easy to use. This has been
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