How To Speed Up Windows 10

Windows 10 and 11 tips

16 ways to speed upward Windows 10

If y'all want to optimize Windows 10, take a few minutes to endeavor out these tips to speed upwards your PC and make information technology less prone to performance and system problems.

Preston Gralla By

Contributing Editor, Computerworld |

x. Disable shadows, animations and visual effects

Windows 10 has some nice eye candy — shadows, animations and visual furnishings. On fast, newer PCs, these don't usually touch on system operation. But on slower and older PCs, they can exact a operation hit.

It's piece of cake to turn them off. In the Windows x search box, blazon sysdm.cpl and press Enter. That launches the Organisation Properties dialog box. Click the Avant-garde tab and click Settings in the Operation section. That brings y'all to the Performance Options dialog box. You'll see a varied list of animations and special furnishings.

performance options — The Performance Options dialog box lets yous turn off furnishings that might be slowing downwardly Windows 10. (Click image to overstate it.)

If y'all have time on your hands and love to tweak, you can plow individual options on and off. These are the animations and special effects you'll probably desire to plow off, because they accept the greatest outcome on organisation performance:

Animate controls and elements inside windows
Animate windows when minimizing and maximizing
Animations in the taskbar
Fade or slide menus into view
Fade or slide ToolTips into view
Fade out menu items subsequently clicking
Show shadows under windows

Nonetheless, it's probably a lot easier to only select "Adjust for best performance" at the top of the screen and so click OK. Windows 10 volition and then turn off the furnishings that slow down your system.

11. Disable transparency

In addition to turning off shadows, animations and visual effects, you lot should also disable the transparency effects that Windows x uses for the Kickoff carte, the Taskbar and the Action Center. Information technology takes a surprising amount of work for Windows to create these transparency furnishings, and turning them off tin can make a deviation in system performance.

To practise it, from Settings, choose Personalization > Colors, roll downwardly to "Transparency furnishings" and move the slider to Off.

win10 speed tips transparency off mar2020 — Turning off Windows 10'due south transparency effects tin assist speed up performance. (Click paradigm to overstate it.)

12. Turn on automated Windows maintenance

Every day, behind the scenes, Windows 10 performs maintenance on your PC. It does things like security scanning and performing arrangement 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 operation. 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 take chances, though, that the feature has been accidentally turned off or you lot oasis't had your PC plugged in for a while, so the maintenance hasn't been done. You can make certain it's turned on and runs every twenty-four hours, and run it manually if you'd like.

Run the Control Panel app and select System and Security > Security and Maintenance. In the Maintenance section, under Automatic Maintenance, click "Start maintenance" if you desire information technology to run now. To make certain that it runs every day, click "Change maintenance settings," and from the screen that appears, select the fourth dimension you'd like maintenance to run, and check the box next to "Let scheduled maintenance to wake upward my computer at the scheduled time." So click OK.

win10 automatic maintenance aug2019 — You can designate a time each day for Windows to run its maintenance tasks. (Click image to overstate it.)

13. Impale bloatware

Sometimes the biggest factor slowing down your PC isn't Windows ten itself, but bloatware or adware that takes up CPU and system resources. Adware and bloatware are particularly insidious considering they may accept been installed by your computer'due south manufacturer. You'd exist amazed at how much more than quickly your Windows 10 PC can run if you get rid of information technology.

First, run a arrangement browse to find adware and malware. If you lot've already installed a security suite such equally Norton Security or McAfee LiveSafe, you lot tin use that. You can likewise apply Windows 10'southward built in anti-malware app — just type Windows Defender in the search box, press Enter, then click Browse Now. Windows Defender volition look for malware and remove any it finds.

It'south a skilful idea to get a second stance, though, and so consider a free tool similar Malwarebytes Anti-Malware. The free version scans for malware and removes what it finds; the paid version offers always-on protection to end infections in the beginning place.

At present you tin check for bloatware and go rid of it. Several free programs will practice this for you; your all-time bet is to run several of them, because no single one volition discover all the bloatware on your PC. Good choices are the PC Decrapifier, Should I Remove It? and SlimComputer.

For more details about removing bloatware, bank check out Computerworld's article "Bloatware: What it is and how to go rid of information technology."

14. Defrag your hd

The more yous use your hard disk drive, the more than it can go fragmented, which tin deadening down your PC. When a deejay gets fragmented, it stores files willy-nilly across it, and it takes a while for Windows to put them together before running them.

Windows 10, though, has a congenital-in defragmenter you tin can utilise to defragment your hard disk drive. You can even tell it to run automatically so it stays constantly defragmented.

To do it, type defrag into the search box and press Enter. From the screen that appears, select the drive you desire y'all want to defragment. Click the Optimize button to defragment it. Select multiple disks by holding down the Ctrl key and clicking each you want to defragment.

If you want to accept your disk or disks defragmented automatically, click the Modify settings push button, and then check the box next to "Run on a schedule." Now select the frequency at which you desire the deejay(south) defragmented by clicking the drop-downwards next to Frequency and selecting Daily, Weekly or Monthly. (Weekly will exist your best bet.) From this screen you can likewise choose multiple drives to defragment.

Note: If yous have an SSD, defragging won't offer any noticeable performance heave, and information technology could cause wearable on the disk. And so information technology's not worth your while to defrag SSDs.

win10 defrag aug2019 — Yous can ready Windows x's congenital-in disk defragmenter to run automatically on a schedule. (Click image to enlarge it.)

15. Disable Game Mode

If you lot're a serious gamer, you lot probably know all about Game Mode, which optimizes your PC for playing games. That's cracking for when yous're doing just that, but it can tedious downwards your arrangement when you're not playing because it multitasks with lots of processes running in the groundwork. Then turning off Game Mode tin can give your PC a quick boost. (You tin can always plough it back on over again when you desire to play a game.)

Game Mode is turned on past default, and then even if you lot've never played a game on your PC, it'southward probably enabled. To turn it off, get to Settings > Gaming > Game Mode and motility the Game Mode slider to Off. After y'all practise that, click the Xbox Game Bar category on the left hand side of the screen, and on the screen you come up to, plow the slider at the top of the screen to Off.

Windows 10 game mode — Turning off Game Mode can requite your PC an instant heave.

16. Shut downwards and restart Windows

Here's i of It'due south not-quite-undercover weapons for troubleshooting and speeding upwardly a PC: Shut information technology downwardly and restart it. Doing that clears out any excess use of RAM that otherwise can't be cleared. It also kills processes that yous might have set in motility and are no longer needed, but that continue running and ho-hum your arrangement. If your Windows ten PC has turned sluggish over time for no apparent reason, you may be surprised at how much more quickly it volition run when you do this.

Attempt just some of these tricks, and you'll notice that you've got a faster Windows 10 PC — and i that is less likely to accept any reliability problems.

This article was originally published in February 2016 and most recently updated in January 2022.

Preston Gralla is a contributing editor for Computerworld and the author of more 45 books, including Windows 8 Hacks (O'Reilly, 2012) and How the Internet Works (Que, 2006).