Sluggish Windows 10? Here’s How to Speed It Up

Is your Windows 10 showing signs of slowing down?

This may be the case for a lot of computers as time progresses, but there are always ways to make them run faster and Windows 10 is no exception. You can ensure it performs to its maximum capacity with a few changes in its settings.

Take it easy on the visual effects

It’s understandable that you’d want to take advantage of the visually impressive animation of Windows 10. But because it uses significant computing power, it may drag the rest of your operating system. So consider turning them all off or making adjustments with certain features.

  1. On the taskbar search bar, type Performance.
  2. Select Adjust the appearance and performance of Windows. This will open a dialog box.
  3. On the opened dialog box, select Adjust for best performance on the Visual Effects tab.
  4. Click Apply and restart your computer for the changes to take effect.

Check out the startup programs and disable unnecessary ones

Applications that are set to run automatically during startup can slow down Windows 10 startup. Waiting for all of them to complete start up before you can even move the mouse can be frustrating. So check out which programs automatically run at startup and disable the unnecessary ones.

  1. Press Ctrl + Alt + Delete, to open Task Manager.
  2. In the lower-left corner of the Task Manager dialog box, select More details.
  3. Go to Startup tab.
  4. Search for programs you don’t need to run on startup and select Disable.
  5. Restart your computer for the necessary changes to take effect.

Activate fast startup

If you want startup to run much faster after disabling unnecessary startup programs, you should enable the fast startup feature. What it does is to save loading time of the hibernation file into memory. This feature is usually enabled by default but check it for good measure.

  1. Go to Control Panel > Power Options. Or, type Power Options on the Windows search bar. Just click on the magnifying glass icon on the lower-left corner.
  2. Click Choose what the power buttons do > Change settings currently unavailable.
  3. Under shutdown settings, see that the box next to Turn on fast startup has a check mark.

Optimize your computer’s power plan

Windows 10 offers 4 default power plans – Balanced, Power saver, Harmony Energy Settings, and High performance. Each plan has its share of pros and cons. Balanced and Power saver, for example, are excellent for battery preservation but worse where maximum performance is concerned. You have to make a choice between performance and saving battery life for an optimum power plan.

Go to Control Panel > Power Options. Or, type Power Options on the Windows search bar. Then, choose a power plan suitable for you.

On top of these, you need to make sure that updates are done more efficiently. If you want your computer to run to its maximum capacity, you need to ensure that the operating system, programs, and drivers are updated. Automatic updates are highly recommended. But because it can use computer resources and slow down your machine, you should adjust update settings. Learn more about Windows 10 automatic update and how to use them properly.

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