How To Reduce PC Startup Time in 5 Easy Ways

One of the biggest changes Windows 8 brought
with it is fast boot. Windows 8 boots up
noticeably faster than its predecessors because
of better resource management and is known to
drastically reduce startup time even on older
computers. Even though the OS itself is
responsible for startup time, you can change a
couple of settings to make it even faster. Here’s
how to reduce PC startup time in 5 easy ways!
Ways to Reduce PC Startup Time
Uninstall unnecessary programs
Even though not needed, we tend to install and
keep a lot of programs. Not only does this take
up precious disk space, but it also includes the
added headache of background agents and
startup entries. To make the software startup
faster, developers usually include background
agents to keep information cached and ready
for launch. This slows down general
performance as well. So go ahead and remove
programs you don’t use frequently or haven’t
used in a while, your computer is better off
without them.
Remove useless startup entries
Probably the easiest and most common way to
reduce your computer startup time, removing
useless startup entries is a solution that makes
a lot of difference. You can do this in a couple
of ways. If you use tools like CCleaner or Tune
Up Utilities, you can simply go to the startup
programs tab and get rid of entries that aren’t
needed. Even if you don’t use any such tool you
can still do this though the Microsoft System
Configuration Utility (msconfig). Here’s how you
do it:
Step 1: Go to Start>Run.
Step 2: Type “msconfig” and press enter.
Step 3: Navigate to the Startup tab and simply
uncheck entries that aren’t needed on startup,
like the Java Updater, Adobe Updater or
programs like a media player that really have no
business during immediate startup. Make sure
not to uncheck driver control panels. If you’re
using Windows 8, you will be redirected to the
new Task Manager that now houses startup
entries.
Get rid of old or unused hardware drivers
At startup, Windows loads all your hardware
drivers which can slow down boot time. There
might be hardware that you don’t use anymore
that are still listed in the device manager which
are slowing down startup. Head over to your
device manager and remove unused or old
hardware entries like old printers, memory card
hubs, Bluetooth controllers etc. Here’s how you
do it:
Step 1: Go to Start>Control Panel>Device
Manager (or) Right click left bottom corner and
click Device Manager on Windows 8.
Step 2: Select View>Show Hidden Devices.
Step 3: Find out the hardware you don’t use and
right click them to see the “Uninstall” option. If
there’s something you use occasionally,
consider just disabling it and enabling it only
when required.
Just make sure you don’t remove anything
important, eh?
Tweak your BIOS settings
Usually when your computer is booting up,
unless set otherwise, it searches for other boot
devices then boots into the HDD. Setting your
HDD as the first boot device eliminates this
search and makes sure that no time is wasted
in looking for other boot devices. You can do
this through the “Boot” menu in your computer’s
BIOS. Oh also check if “Quick Boot” or “Fast
Boot” is checked in advanced boot options, it
skips some tests that would otherwise take
some time.
Defragment your hard drive and run disk
cleanup
Fragmentation is a problem every standard hard
disk drive has to deal with. It basically happens
when chunks of data are stored physically apart
on the magnetic disk inside an HDD. Naturally,
this distribution makes it difficult for Windows to
read efficiently, so it’s recommended to keep
your drives defragmented, specially if you’re
someone who moves a lot of data back and
forth. This can be done through external tools or
the built in Windows Defragmentation tool. Even
getting rid of temporary files through disk
cleanup helps. Windows 7 lets you do this
through the System Tools in Accessories, and
disk cleanup can be done by right clicking a
partition. On Windows 8, simply click on a
partition in Computer and under the ribbon menu
you should be able to find “Manage”, with
options to Optimize and Cleanup the disk.
Those were 5 easy ways to reduce PC startup
time, do let us know if you have any queries or
if you have any more solutions!