Give the boot to bad boot times
Remember first pulling your new computer out of the box. That initial press of the power button is thrilling. To be instantly greeted with the setup screen was probably a huge upgrade in speed over your previous machine, but that may have been a while ago. Now when you press the power button you have the downtime to check your phone, go to the bathroom, or even grab a snack while to computer boots up. We all know the pain of these slow boot-times, but we are here to help with getting your boot-time back to that new computer feel. We will start off with some of the easier or more effective methods and get more in depth as we go along.
The fixes, simple and complex
The quickest way to start reducing your computer's boot-time is to disable unnecessary startup programs. To do this, right-click on the taskbar and open task manager. From there click on “more details” and find startup. Click on any programs you know you do not need and disable them. The next option is to unplug any devices from your computer you are not using like flash drives or possible DVD/CD's that may be in a disk drive. We have gone over the importance of keeping your computer up to date in previous posts and it is no different now. Keeping your computer up to date is a great way to keep boot-times speedy.
This next section is for the options that require some form of technical knowledge or are not as potent as the ones listed above. The first of these slightly more complicated methods is to uninstall unnecessary programs. This can be done by opening the control panel and clicking “Uninstall a Program” under Programs. Click on the program you know you do not need and then click uninstall. Malware is another reason your computer could be booting slowly. To check, open your anti-malware program and click scan. If you do not have one check out our blog post about anti-malware. Another good way to just speed up a computer in general is to clean it, both physically dusting and internal disk cleaning. You can do that with the “disk cleanup tool” that comes installed on windows.
This final group of advice is for those willing to open their wallets. Upgrading components or the computer itself is a surefire way to speed up boot times. The most important piece to upgrade to is a Solid-State Drive (SSD) or similarly a M.2 SSD. Upgrading the amount of RAM is also a good way to reduce boot-times. Finally upgrading your version of Windows. Each new version of Windows has been shown to boot faster than the previous even if everything else is the same.
Hopefully these tips helped you get back to that new computer feel.
If you are interested in reading more of our blogs about different computer issues: