Want to make Windows 10 run faster? We can help. In just a few minutes, you can try out dozens of tips for this baker; your device will glide more smoothly and be less prone to performance and system issues.
1. Change Your Power Settings
If you're using the "Power saver" plan in Windows 10, you're slowing down your computer. This plan reduces your computer's performance to save energy. (Even desktop computers often have a "Power saver" plan.) Switching your power plan from "Power saver" to "High performance" or "Balanced" will give you an immediate performance boost.
To do this, open the Control Panel app, then select Power Options under Hardware and Sound. You will typically see two options: "Balanced (recommended)" and "Power saver." (Depending on your make and model, you may see other plans here as well, including some branded by the manufacturer.) To view the "High performance" setting, click the down arrow next to "Show additional plans."
Change your power settings in the Control Panel to boost your computer's performance.
To change your power setting, simply select the one you want, then exit the Control Panel. "High performance" gives you maximum appeal but uses the most power; "Balanced" finds a happy medium between power use and better performance; and "Power saver" does everything it can to give you the longest possible battery life. Desktop users have no reason to choose "Power saver," and even laptop users should consider the "Balanced" option when not plugged in - and "High performance" when connected to a power source.
2. Disable Startup Programs
One reason your Windows 10 computer may feel sluggish is that you have too many programs running in the background - programs you rarely or never use. Turn them off, and your computer will run more smoothly.
Start by opening Task Manager: press Ctrl-Shift-Esc, right-click on the bottom right corner of your screen and select Task Manager, or type Task Manager in the Windows 10 search box and hit Enter. If Task Manager opens as a compact app without tabs, click "More details" at the bottom of the screen. Task Manager will then display its full glory. There's a lot you can do with it, but we'll focus only on killing unnecessary programs that run at startup.
Click on the Startup tab. You'll see a list of programs and services that run when Windows starts. The list includes each program's name along with its publisher, whether it's enabled to run at startup, and "Startup impact," which indicates how much it slows down Windows 10 during system startup.
To disable a program or service at startup, right-click on it and select "Disable." This doesn't disable the program entirely; it just prevents it from starting up at boot - you can always launch the app after startup. Also, if you later decide you want it to run at startup, you can simply return to this area of Task Manager, right-click on the app, and select "Enable."
You can use Task Manager to get information about the programs that run at startup and disable any you don't need.
Many of the programs and services that run at startup may be familiar to you, like OneDrive or Evernote Clipper. But you might not recognize many of them.
Task Manager helps you get information about unfamiliar programs. Right-click on an item and select "Properties" for more information about it, including its location on the hard drive, whether it has a digital signature, and other details like version number, file size, and last modified date.
You can also right-click on the item and select "Open file location." This opens File Explorer and takes you to the folder where the file is located, which may give you another clue about the program's purpose.
Finally, and most helpfully, you can select "Search online" after right-clicking. Bing will then start with links to sites that have information about the program or service.
If you're really concerned about one of the listed applications, you can go to a site run by Reason Software called Should I Block It? and search for the file name. You'll usually find very strong information about the program or service.
Now that you've identified all the programs you want to disable at startup, the next time you restart your computer, the system will pay less attention to unnecessary programs.
3. Use ReadyBoost to Speed Up Disk Caching
Windows 10 regularly stores cached data on the hard drive, and when it needs the data, it fetches it from there. The time it takes to fetch cached data depends on the speed of your hard drive. If you have a traditional hard drive instead of an SSD, there's a trick that can help speed up caching: use the ReadyBoost feature in Windows. It tells Windows to cache data on a USB flash drive, which is faster than the hard drive. Fetching data from the faster cache should speed up Windows.
First, plug a USB flash drive into one of your computer's USB ports. The flash drive needs to support at least USB 2.0, preferably USB 3 or faster. The faster your flash drive, the better speed you should see. Also, look for a flash drive that is at least twice the size of your computer's RAM for optimal performance.
After plugging in the drive, open File Explorer and click on "This PC." Look for the flash drive. It may have a strange name, like UDISK 28X, or something less obvious. Right-click on it, choose Properties, and click on the ReadyBoost tab.
Enable ReadyBoost from this screen to speed up your computer.
A screen will appear asking if you want to use the flash drive as cache memory and recommending a cache size. Leave the cache size as is or change it if you wish. Then select "Dedicate this device to ReadyBoost" and click "Apply," then click "OK."
(Note that if you see the message, "This device cannot be used for ReadyBoost" when clicking the ReadyBoost tab, it means the flash drive does not meet the minimum performance standards for ReadyBoost, so you'll need to insert a new one.)
While using your computer, ReadyBoost will start filling the cache with files, so you may notice increased disk activity. Depending on how much you use your computer, it may take a few days to fill your cache and provide maximum improved performance. If you don't notice a performance increase, try a larger flash drive.
4. Turn Off Windows Tips and Tricks
While using your Windows 10 computer, Windows monitors what you're doing and offers tips on things you might want to do with the operating system. In my experience, I rarely found these "tips" helpful, if at all. I also dislike the privacy implications of Windows constantly looking over my shoulder.
Watching what you do and offering tips can also slow down your computer. So if you want to speed things up, tell Windows to stop giving you tips. To do this, click the Start button, select the "Settings" icon, then go to System > Notifications & actions. Scroll down to the "Notifications" section and uncheck the box "Get tips, tricks, and suggestions as you use Windows."
Turning off Windows suggestions on your behalf should help things run more smoothly (and give you some privacy) this will do the trick.
5. Prevent OneDrive from Syncing
Microsoft's cloud-based OneDrive file storage, built into Windows 10, keeps files synced and updated across all your computers. It's also a handy backup tool, so if your computer or hard drive gets destroyed, all your files are still intact, waiting to be restored.
Here's how to temporarily turn off OneDrive syncing to see if it boosts system performance.
It does this by constantly syncing files between your computer and cloud storage - which can also slow down your computer. That's why one way to speed up your computer is to stop syncing. However, before you turn it off completely, you'll want to check if it's actually slowing down your computer.
To do this, right-click the OneDrive icon (which looks like a cloud) in the notification area on the right side of the taskbar, then click the "More" button at the bottom of the screen. From the pop-up screen that appears, click "Pause syncing" and select either two hours, 8 hours, or 24 hours, depending on how long you want to pause it. During that time, measure whether you see a noticeable speed increase.
If so, and you decide you really want to turn off syncing, right-click the OneDrive icon, and from the pop-up menu, select Settings > Account. Click "Unlink this PC," then from the screen that appears, click "Unlink account." Doing this will still allow you to save files in your local OneDrive folder, but they won't sync with your online account.
If you find that OneDrive is slowing down your computer but you prefer to keep using it, you can try troubleshooting OneDrive issues. For information on how to do this, check out Microsoft's "Fix OneDrive sync problems" page.
6. Turn Off Search Indexing
Windows 10 indexes the hard drive in the background, allowing you - in theory - to search your computer faster than if indexing wasn't done. But slower computers using indexing can experience great performance hits, and you can boost their speed by turning off indexing. Even if you have an SSD, turning off indexing can improve your speed, as the constant writing to the disk that indexing does can eventually slow down solid-state drives.
For maximum benefit in Windows 10, you need to turn off indexing completely. To do this, type services.msc in the Windows 10 search box and hit Enter. The Services application will appear. Scroll down to either Indexing Service or Windows Search in the list of services. Double-click it, and from the screen that appears, click Stop. Then restart your device. Searches you perform may be a bit slower, although you may not notice the difference. But you should get an overall performance boost.
If you prefer, you can turn off indexing only for files in specific locations. To do this, type
