It is inevitable that Windows slows down over time, especially if you install a lot of programs. I will show you one simple thing you can do to speed up Windows load time as well as overall responsiveness.
Click on the “Start” button in the bottom left hand corner of your desktop. In Windows XP, click on “Run” and then type in “msconfig” and then press enter. In Windows Vista and 7, simply type “msconfig” into the search bar and press enter. Once you have opened it, click on the tab labeled “Startup”.
This will display a window with all the programs that Windows loads during startup. If you see lots of check marks, then that means that Windows is loading lots of programs which slows down the boot time and consumes precious memory. Let’s get rid of some of these.
If you scan the list, you will probably see some familiar program names, like Adobe Acrobat Reader or perhaps Java Updater. We want to eliminate any non-essential programs that are loading. The easiest way to do this is to uncheck everything, click on “Apply” and then restart the computer. But, there are certain things we want to load at startup and you will want to leave these checked. Examples of such programs are anti-virus (AVG, Norton, McCaffee, etc.), other malware programs (Windows Defender, Ad-Aware, Spybot, etc.), and services that allow external peripherals to work (Ipod, Blackberry Phone, etc.). If you are unsure whether or not you need something, uncheck it, apply, and restart. If everything still works fine, then you didn’t really need it. Printers are like this these days. They often load several programs at startup that are not needed if all you need to do is print.
Sometimes it is a process of trial and error, but if you keep at it, you will notice serious gains in your system speed. If you need any help, please feel free to contact us or leave a comment.
