Make your PC faster even without installing an SSD.
If your computer is starting to feel slower than when you first powered it up, here are some ways to make it faster
1. Disable Transparency
Windows 10’s Start menu may look good, but that transparency will cost you some resources that slow your PC slightly
To reclaim those resources, you can disable transparency.
Open the Settings menu and go to Personalization > Colors and toggle off Transparency Effects.
2. Remove Special Effects
Windows 10 still has a lot of built-in special effects. Small animations, color changes etc. that make Windows 10 visually attractive but take some resources to do so. To get to the special effects menu search in the Search bar for “Advanced System Settings” and open
Click on the Settings button in the Performance section.
Pick and choose if you like some special effect or select from the Windows sets for best performance or best appearance.
If you select Best Performance all these will be disabled. You can always come back and re-enable your preferred ones.
3. Reduce Boot Menu Time-out
Since you are here, there is another setting to check in the Startup and Recovery section Settings (see tip above to see how to get here)
When your computer starts up, the boot menu is displayed for a certain amount of time before the operating system loads. This gives you time to do things like start Windows in Safe Mode. You can shave a few seconds off your startup time by changing the boot menu time-out to 5 or 10 seconds form the original 30 or disable it all together. This may be disabled but check it just in case.
4. Disable Startup programs
When you install programs on your computer, many of them have a startup mini program that will launch at your computer startup to prepare the environment for that program. Most of the times you don’t need them. Here’s how to disable them.
Search for Startup in the Search bar and go to Startup apps
Remove everything you don’t need. Notice the Impact value (Low, Medium, High or No impact). Target to turn off the ones with High or Medium Impact. Review these apps periodically. New programs always add startup apps.
Here is how you do that in a short video
5. Enable Fast Startup
Fast Startup is a setting hidden in the Power settings. When enabled, Windows saves some data into a hibernation state and starts from hibernation rather than a complete power down.
To enable, find the power settings by searching power in the search bar
Click on Additional Power settings
Then click on “Choose what the power buttons do”
Click on “Change Settings that are currently unavailable” and then enable “Turn on fast startup (recommended)”
This setting will help after shutdown only. It doesn’t make a difference for startup.
6. No tips, please
In an effort to be helpful, Windows 10 will sometimes give you tips on how to get the most out of the OS. It monitors your actions in order to do this, a process that can have a slight impact on performance.
To turn off these tips, search for Notifications in the Search bar and go to the “Notifications & Actions settings”
Once there, disable the tips, tricks and suggestions. Take some time to review other notification settings that you might want to disable at this time
7. Run Disk Cleanup
This will not only help you speed things up but also gain some space on your hard drive.
To do that, search for Disk Cleanup int he search bar
Run for each of your disks and review the list of files to remove / delete. Pay close attention and make sure you are not loosing some files that may still be in your download folder.
8. Remove unwanted bloatware
All PC manufacturers load up the PC with programs created by them. Try these programs if you want but many times you’ll discover they have little or no use. Or you may have some other more performance programs for the same job.
To remove these programs search for add remove programs in the search bar
Review the programs installed and remove what you don’t need. This might not just make your PC faster but also save you some space on your hard drive.
9. Restart Often
Make sure you restart your PC often. Restarting will clear the memory of programs that you used and stopped or processes that stay one after they are not needed.
10. Turn ON automatic updates
Make sure you turn ON automatic updates to get all the bug fixes and security patches that might affect the performance and the speed of your computer
11. Turn ON automatic maintenance
Every day, behind the scenes, Windows 10 performs maintenance on your PC. It does things like security scanning and performing system diagnostics to make sure everything is up to snuff — and automatically fixes problems if it finds them. That makes sure your PC runs at peak performance. By default, this automatic maintenance runs every day at 2:00 a.m., as long as your device is plugged into a power source and is asleep.
There’s a chance, though, that the feature has been accidentally turned off or you haven’t had your PC plugged in for a while, so the maintenance hasn’t been done. You can make sure it’s turned on and runs every day, and run it manually if you’d like.
To turn on this setting search for Automatic Maintenance in the search bar
Set the time for the maintenance and if you want your computer woken up for it.
That’s it! If these tips helped you, leave a comment and let us know what made the most difference or tell us other tips to make your computer faster
