How to Increase Computer Speed

Everybody wants a faster computer and there are several options that a user can use to increase computer speed. Here we will take a look at those options, what they do and how to implement them.

Download and install Windows Updates

It’s a hassle to install all the updates Windows releases, but many of them cover important security issues that keep hackers out of your computer and improve stability of programs.

Go to the Control Panel, select Windows Update and install the updates.

Disable indexing of drives

Windows indexes everything that gets stored on the hard drive to reduce the time it takes to return the results when you do a search on your hard drive. Unless you have a hard time finding your files and need to search your hard drive regularly you can safely disable this feature.

Go to My Computer – Right click C: drive and select properties, at the bottom of the windows you can see the phrase “allow indexing service to…”, uncheck the box and click apply. Close the window and repeat the step for any additional drives.

Clean up unused files and temporary folders

Windows stores just about anything, which gives you a great deal of files on your computer you don’t need. Fortunately there is a tool you can use to get rid of these files in one go.

Click start – All Programs – Accessories – System Tools – Disk Cleanup

Run this tool to clear out all unneeded files.

You should also go through your desktop items and My Documents folders and remove any clutter and unneeded files there to get rid of junk and things you don’t need. This will increase computer performance and make it easier to find the files you actually need.

Defragment your hard drive

Over time as you add and remove files, applications and move stored data around on the hard drive it becomes fragmented. Disk defragmentation can reorder data stored on the hard drive to increase data access speed.

Follow the steps above, but when you get to system tools select Disk Defragmenter.

Note: Defragmenting will take a considerable amount of time depending on the time of your hard drive and how much data stored on it.

Disable unneeded start up programs

Many programs will start automatically on start up, but they are not really needed and waste computer resources.

Click Start – run… - type “msconfig” without the quotations in the box and hit enter. A new window should appear, go to the startup tab and you will get a list of all the programs that start on start up. Disable any unnecessary programs.

Note: Some programs are required for Windows to operate, if you are not sure leave it alone to prevent errors.

Scan your computer for malware

Research shows that 90% of home computers are infected with spyware and adware, so chances are you will have some kind of spyware installed on your computer. These are mini applications installed without user consent and send information to its developers and bother you with ads, not only are they an infringement of privacy, they hog up computer resources.

Run your antivirus application and search for potential threats and remove them.

You should also download and run an anti-spyware application to scan your system for potential threats, chances are you will have a few spyware applications installed on your computer that your antivirus missed, for some reason many antivirus applications don’t give much priority to spyware and adware. Remove the ones discovered and you will probably notice the improvement immediately.

Remove unused programs and application.

Many computer users will download and install programs and applications they never use, or some will just become outdated and replaced by better programs. Keeping these programs waste hard drive space and they might be running in the background and use processing power.

Go to Start – Control Panel – Add/Remove Programs. You will get a list all the programs installed on your computer that you can remove. Proceed to remove all the applications you don’t use or need.

Note: In some cases this utility will not remove all files related to the applications or leave certain components out of the uninstall process, like a software updater, this can clutter up the hard drive and your computers registry and cause other errors. A good recommendation is to use a registry cleaner to clean up your computer and repair eventual errors in the registry to avoid future errors.

Scan your registry for errors and repair them

The registry is the most important part of Windows, this is where all operational files are stored, how applications should run, hardware compatibility and system settings. It’s the brain of your computer. But the registry easily gets cluttered with the adding and removal of programs or changing system settings, these errors can lead a wealth of frustration; from slow performance and errors messages to computer freezing and system crashes.

Download a registry cleaner and scan your registry for errors and fix them, your computer will benefit from it, and you could avoid serious problems in the future.

Top Choices

If I were to choose the top things to do of the choices above it is to run a registry cleaner at least once a week to clean up any errors located in the registry to prevent any errors for occurring. And always have spyware protection to get rid of any spyware and adware applications installed as they seem to come from everywhere these days, although they are not always harmful, they can be very annoying and considerably slows down performance.