Make a Windows Computer Start up Faster
Is your home computer running slow? There are many possible reasons why your home computer is running slow. Here are some tips you can use to help get your PC back up to speed.
Contents
Steps
- Delete unused files. Windows will run faster if the drive is cleared of unused files. These unused files are typically Temporary Files, URL history, cookies, form history, and files present in Recycle bin. An easy way to do this is by using the pre installed program Disk Cleanup.
- Defragment hard drives. Use the method below to use the utility supplied with Windows.
- Open My Computer.
- Right click on the drive you want to defragment and select "Properties".
- Click on the Tools tab.
- Select De fragment Now....
- Manually change the applications that automatically start:
- Click start
- Go to run
- Type msconfig, and click ok
- After typing msconfig, click on the boot.ini tab then click the + sign next to Noguiboot, this will help you out a lot and will shut off the windows animation. which helps your computer to boot up faster.
Alternate Method: MSConfig
- Go to start, run then type in msconfig in the run box.
- A window should pop up. Then at the top of the window you will see a start up tab. Go to the startup tab and disable unneeded programs. If you don't know what it is, search it on google.com. If you are afraid of disabling it, leave it on.
- Go to the boot tab or "BOOT.INI" tab. Then in the boot section, click advanced options. A box should pop up with the choice of using multiple processors at start up, tick the box next to the option and choose how many processors you want to use. For windows XP users, enable /NUMPROC= and set it to how many processors you have to use at boot up. Click OK and go back to the boot section of the msconfig screen.
- On the right side of the msconfig boot screen you should see a timeout section and the timeout section should be set at 30 seconds, change this setting to 3 seconds.
- Click ok and ok to exit the msconfig box and restart your computer.
Alternate Method: Bios
- Turn on your computer. Not sleep or hibernating, cold boot or from restarting. When you see your computer's manufacturer logo, aka BIOS screen, press the corresponding function key to enter the setup. It usually displays the key to pressing the certain function key to enter setup.
- Now that you have entered setup, you will only be using the arrow keys, Enter, and ESC to navigate through the BIOS. Move over to the boot tab by pressing the left or down arrow until you get to the boot tab. Once in the boot section of the BIOS, select Boot priority or boot order or something similar, and when you are in the boot priority, you will see the 4 priorities. The priority should be the floppy, then CD, then HDD group, then networking group or something similar. We are going to change the first priority to HDD group. Go to priority 1 and press enter. A box should pop up displaying the list of hardware to put in the first priority. Select HDD group for the first priority. Go to priority 2 and select CD group, then priority 3 and set it to networking group, and priority 4 select floppy group or you can just disable the fourth priority. Just make sure that the HDD group is in the first priority and that there are no copies of other groups in different priorities. For example, we want to avoid having the HDD group being checked for media that can be booted after anything else. We only want 1 group for 1 priority
- Exit boot priority and in the boot section there should be a quick boot option, we want to enable this option. Move to the quick boot option and press enter and a box should pop up asking for enable or disable, we want to enable it so move to the enable option and press enter.
- Press esc and exit and save the bios.
Tips
- Download Microsoft BootVis, a free program that allows you to optimize your system.
Warnings
- Remember, when you make changes, good and bad can come from it. Deleting critical files can cause serious damage to your PC. Delete files with caution!
