102 PCWorld JULY 2020HERE’S HOW CHEAP & FREE WAYS TO MAKE YOUR PC FASTER
these tweaks and tips aren’t as thrilling as
booting up a brand-new PC for the first
time—but they’ll let you continue to get the
job done with the gear you already have. Try
them before you invest in a new laptop (go.
pcworld.com/newl).- STREAMLINE YOUR
STARTUP
Let’s start with the simpler things first. If your
computer is chugging, too much software
booting at system start may just be to blame.
Before you take more drastic measures,
clean up your startup by opening the Startup
tab of Windows 10’s Task Manager, or typing
PVFRQÀJ in Windows 7 and opening its
Startup tab.
While you don’t want to disable
Windows processes, or processes related to
your hardware, ruthlessly eliminate anything
else that you can identify if at all possible.
You wouldn’t want to prevent your antivirus
from launching at startup, but there’s no
reason for Steam or Adobe Reader to hog
your system resources except for when you
explicitly need them. Windows 10 helpfully
tells you how much of an impact each
program has on your startup time. Take out
any high-impact, non-essential programs
first, then move down the list from there.- SPRING CLEANING, PT. 1
If cutting back your boot programs doesn’t
do the trick, it’s time to try some deeper
cleaning. Eradicate any programs you don’t
actually use—PC makers stuff computers full
of bloatware (go.pcworld.com/bltw). Search
for $GGRUUHPRYHSURJUDPV in the
Windows search box and work through the
list of installed programs.
Run a security sweep while you’re at it, in
case malware is slowing down your system.
PCWorld’s guide to the
best antivirus suites (go.
pcworld.com/bavr) can
help, but the Windows
Security tool (go.
pcworld.com/wnsc)
built right into Windows
10 does a surprisingly
good job at eradicating
threats. Don’t bother
defragmenting your
storage. You shouldn’t - even defrag SSDs, and if