How to Tune Up Your Windows 10 PC for Free
It’s only a matter of time before your Windows 10 PC begins to run slowly. You can kick the operating system back into high gear with these useful tips—and they won’t cost you a penny.
Anyone who has spent time working or playing on a Windows PC has surely felt the sting that comes with firing up a computer and realizing that something is…off. The PC boots slowly. Apps take forever to launch. Files open at a snail’s pace. In years past, a tune-up utility was a necessary tool for remedying PC performance issues. Microsoft now ships the Windows 10 operating with numerous, capable built-in system-enhancing utilities, however.
When your PC’s operating system begins to drag, your first step should be to use the tune-up tools baked into Windows 10. You may never need to buy a separate tune-up utility, as Windows’ tune-up tools proved effective in our tests. In fact, Windows 10 topped several third-party competitors in two of our four testing areas. Please read one of our tune-up utility reviews for an in-depth explanation of our tune-up testing procedure. Ashampoo WinOptimizer is a good place to start.
One undeniable strength of third-party tune-up utilities is their ability to perform several system actions from within one easily negotiable interface-often with just a single mouse-click. Iolo System Mechanic, for example, lets you click a single icon to get the system-cleaning process started. Windows 10 doesn’t contain the one-click tune-up button that Iolo System Mechanic and so many other tune-up utilities boast. At least, not yet.
In addition, tune-up utilities frequently include file shredders that permanently delete your unwanted data, but there are plenty of free and paid file shredders that perform the same action. Program uninstallers and driver updaters, which are also bundled in some tune-up utilities, can also be purchased as standalone software from Ashampoo and IObit. Again, third-party tune-up utilities have the benefit of gathering everything into one central location.
Convenience is a real advantage. Tools that you never use are, literally, useless tools. The fact that Microsoft doesn’t have a big Tune-Up My PC button that starts all the wheels turning really counts against it .
That said, the tools are all there, if you’re willing to dig for them, and they’re all free to use. Furthermore, Microsoft doesn’t recommend that you use tune-up utilities to tweak Windows 10, as those programs tweak the registry. That’s a no-no in Redmond’s eyes.
The upshot is that, if you don’t mind exploring Windows’ many PC-improving options on your own, you may not need to download a tune-up utility. If you’re well versed in Windows 10, you’ll know precisely where to go. If you’re a Windows 10 novice, the tips below will put you on the healthy PC path. Happy cleaning.
Please note that now is an excellent time to upgrade to Windows 10 from an older Microsoft operating system. This is especially true if your PC runs Windows 7, an OS that reached its end of life on January 14, 2020.
Fire Up the Disk Defragmenter
Over time, the data on a hard drive disk (HDD) scatters across the storage device, thus increasing load times. As a result, defragmenting your PC’s hard drive disk — the act of bringing those data bits closer together — is an essential task. Fortunately, Windows 10 has a tool that lets you do that with ease.
You launch Windows 10’s disk defrag app by typing “defrag” into the taskbar search box and clicking Defragment and Optimize Drives. Once that window is open, select the drive (or drives!) that you wish to defrag and click Analyze. The tool will scan your PC’s HDD and display the fragmentation percentage. After that, you click Optimize to begin the repair process.
If you wish to defrag your PCs hard drive on a regular basis, click the window’s Change Settings option. That enables your PC to automatically run the drive optimizer on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis.
Note: There’s no need to defrag a solid-state drive (SSD). In fact, Windows 10 doesn’t let you analyze and defragment those storage drives. That said, Windows 10 optimizes them to the extent of making sure deleted data has been removed to free up more storage.
Activate Storage Sense
Storage Sense is a feature that’s deactivated by default, but if you want to keep your Windows 10 machine in tip-top shape, you should turn it on right now. Storage Sense automatically deletes unimportant files, such as items in the Recycle Bin and temporary files, when your PC is low on storage space. So, once you set it, you can forget it.
You can find the option by keying the word “storage” into the Windows 10 taskbar search box and selecting the System Settings > Storage result that appears. You can even select how often Windows 10 runs Storage Sense by clicking the Change How We Free Up Space Automatically option on the Storage home screen. In our experience, it finds more junk than Windows Disk Cleanup option, a feature that’s now considered a legacy tool.
In addition, if you want to immediately dump those files, click the Free Up Space Now option on the Storage home screen.
Control When Apps Start Up Times With Task Manager
Windows 10’s streamlined Task Manager, activated by keying the app’s name into the desktop search engine or by pressing Ctrl-Shift-Esc, lets you control which apps boot at launch by selecting the Startup tab. This one of the most effective ways to decrease your PC’s boot time, as damn near every app will want to launch when you press the power button.
Once Task Manager is open, you can enable or disable a program from booting up with your PC by right-clicking its name and selecting the appropriate option. Don’t fret, however; even if you disable a virtual private network from launching at startup, you can launch the VPN at any other time.
We recommend sorting the Startup apps by their system impact and disabling the ones marked as High (unless you use them frequently enough that it’s worth the wait, of course). On the flip slide, cloud storage services, such as Dropbox, Google Drive, or OneDrive, should run at startup, so your files will stay synced.
In addition, you should launch MSConfig to double check that the items you de-selected from starting up. You see, some applications will have an auto-updater or another component that continues to launch in the background after your PC boots. After you open MSConfig by keying its name into the desktop taskbar, click the Services tab and uncheck non-system entries that are from apps you don’t use.
Run Anti-Malware Software
One of the risks of visiting a less than scrupulous website or downloading freeware is the installation of potentially unwanted programs — PUPs for short. These malware apps may not be overtly malicious, but they can negatively impact your PC’s performance or prove incredibly difficult to remove. In such cases, you should install Malwarebytes Free, an app that digs deep and remedies issues caused by malware that got by your antivirus app.
Originally published at https://www.pcmag.com.
