Four Easy Ways To Speed Up Your Windows Computer

1. Uninstall programs you no longer need.

   Even when you’re not using them, installed programs take up space in the Windows registry, which is a huge file that lists the options and preferences of almost every program installed on your system. And since each program you run will access the registry many times, and a bloated registry takes longer to access, it makes sense to keep the registry as compact as possible by routinely uninstalling programs you no longer use.

   It’s easy to uninstall a program:

   • Open the Start Menu and click on Control Panel
   • Click on Add or Remove Programs.
   • After a short pause, you will be presented with a list of your currently installed programs. Carefully scan down the list, and when you come to a program that you no longer need, select it and click on the Remove button.
   • Follow the prompts until the program has been removed.
   • Continue scanning the list until there are no more programs that you want to uninstall.

   Note: If you’re unsure about whether you really want to uninstall a program, don’t uninstall it now. You can always uninstall it later if you decide to do so.

2. Stop unnecessary programs from starting when Windows starts.

   A lot of computer programs think they are more important than they actually are. Instead of waiting until you want to use them, they want to load themselves into memory when Windows starts so that they’re always running and available. I have a printer driver that used to load with Windows for the sole purpose of popping up a registration reminder every thirty days. Programs like this add overhead to your system, and too much overhead slows your system down.

   To stop programs from starting when Windows does:

   • Open the Start Menu and click on Run…
   • Type the word msconfig and click on the OK button to start the System Configuration Utility.
   • Click on the Startup tab.

   Examine the list of startup items. These startup items are all programs that load when Windows starts. If you recognize a startup item and want it to load when Windows starts, leave it alone. If you recognize the startup item and don’t want it to load when Windows starts, un-check it. If you don’t recognize the startup item, it’s up to you; you can either leave it alone or un-check it and see what happens.

   When you’re done un-checking startup items, exit the System Configuration Utility and restart Windows. If everything works as you would like, you’re done — but if you find that you made a mistake and un-checked a startup item that you would really like to load with Windows after all, just re-run the System Configuration Utility, put a checkmark back in front of the correct startup item, and restart Windows again. Continue in this way until you’re satisfied that your startup configuration is as clean as you can make it.

3. Scan your hard drive for errors.

   Power outages, program crashes, Windows crashes, and hardware defects can all cause errors on the hard drive. As these errors accumulate, they slow down access to the drive, which slows down the computer. To speed things up again, Windows must do a complete scan of the drive to identify and correct or lock out any errors.

   Don’t forget that it is always a good idea to make backups of important data before doing anything substantial to the hard drive.

   To start a disk scan:

   • Open the Start menu and click on My Computer.
   • Right-click on the drive you want to scan and select Properties.
   • Select the Tools tab and click on the Check now button.
   • Select the Automatically fix file system er
     

     Filed Under Windows How-To's