How to Speed up Your Windows 10 Performance

Windows accounts for the highest market share in the desktop OS segment. Just recently, Windows 10 outpaced Windows 7 and became the most popular desktop OS in the world. However, despite its popularity, the old Windows issues remain there and users are always wary if the next update will botch up the performance. Currently, Windows 10 is quite fast and frankly, it’s way better than its earlier versions of Windows. 

However, on older PCs, the performance is lackluster. Also, if you use lots of apps on your Windows 10 computer, chances are your computer will become prone to lagging. So in this article, we are bringing some neat hacks which can speed up Windows 10 considerably. So, if you are interested in making your Windows 10 PC faster, here is how you can speed up Windows 10
Method 1: Change your power settings
It's possible that you are using a power plan that will save energy by decreasing your computer's performance. To speed up your Windows 10, you should change your plan to High Performance, which uses more energy but offers a better performance of your PC. To set this power plan:
1. Click Start > Settings > System > Power & sleep

2. Click Additional power settings on the right side.
3. Expand Show additional plans and then you will see the High performance option. Choose it as your power plan.

Method 2: Disable Startup Programs
f you have too many programs starting up automatically, your boot time will increase dramatically. Also, too many apps are running in the background will make Windows 10 run sluggishly. Thus, by disabling unwanted startup programs, you can also speed up your Windows 10 tremendously.
1. Right-click on the Taskbar and open Task Manager.

2. Switch to the Startup tab and check for unnecessary apps with higher impact on the system. You can do so by clicking on Startup Impact label. Next, right-click on applications and click on Disable. Do this for every unnecessary app. This will speed up Windows 10 every time you turn on your PC.

Method 3: Disable Background Apps
Background apps are Windows apps which run in the background to receive notifications and updates. While messaging and email apps may require background sync, apps like Candy Crush and Calculator don’t need it at all. These apps constantly run in the background and make the computer slow, besides draining the battery. So to speed up Windows 10, first disable the background apps. Here is how to do it.
1. Open Windows Settings and click on Privacy

2. Here, scroll down and open the Background apps tab on the left pane. On the top, disable Let apps run in the background altogether. If you wish to customize the settings per app, you can do so as well.

Method 4: Disable Cortana
If you use Cortana regularly, then you may skip this section. However, if you don’t use Cortana and want to limit your search to just PC, then it’s better to disable it at once. This will save you a lot of computer resources as Cortana keeps hogging memory and important resources in the background. Follow these steps to disable Cortana and speed up Windows 10 significantly.
1. We have created two Registry files which can enable or disable Cortana in a click. So download both the files from here.
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1t0kgKTnW4CQZ_foV9_Rb_AuuxjgNKT5O?usp=sharing
2. After that, double click on Disable Cortana and click on Run. That’s it. Now restart your computer and Cortana will be gone.

3. In case you want Cortana back then simply double click on “Enable Cortana” and allow it to run. Further, restart your PC and Cortana will be enabled.
Note: Microsoft keeps adding back Cortana after every Windows update. So you will have to run the same Registry files to disable it again.
Method 5: Defragment and optimize drives
With the built-in disk defragmentation utility in Windows, you can rearrange the files on a disk to occupy continuous storage space, which will speed up file access. To optimize your drives:
1. Search defragment, and click Defragment and Optimize Drives when you see the option.

2.Select your system drive (generally C drive) and click Optimize.

Method 6: Clean up the disks
Unlike disk defragmentation, which rearranges the files, Disk Cleanup works to remove unnecessary files on the hard drive and help to reclaim your disk space.
1. Open This PC, right-click on your system drive and choose Properties.

2. Click Disk Cleanup under the General tab and the utility will start scanning your drive and calculating how much space you can free.

3. When it is done, choose Clean up system files in the window to let the tool scan your disk again.

4. After the second scan, click OK in the new window. Then you will see a notification asking you Are you sure you want to permanently delete these files?. Click Delete Files. Since these operations just remove unnecessary files in your system, you don’t need to worry about losing important files.

Method 7: Delete temp files
Temp files are files that only need to exist temporarily and will become useless later. It's unreasonable to keep these files stored on a disk that has limited space.
Does deleting temporary files really speed up your computer? Definitely. Many users have reported noticeable performance improvements by deleting their temp files.
1. Go to Run and type %temp% and click OK. Then you will be directed to the Windows Temp folder.

2. Select and delete all the files within the folder.
3. Go to the Run box again, type temp and click OK.

4. When you see a notification saying you don’t currently have permission to access this folder, click Continue.
5. Select and delete all the files.
6. Go to the Run box and enter prefetch. Click Continue, then delete all files within the folder.

Method 8: Disable Delivery Optimization
To provide a faster update, Windows has something called Delivery Optimization. It uses computers on the local network to transfer chunks of update files to the nearby PC. If you keep it turned on then your PC may be used as a node to connect with other PC for sending update files. While it’s a good effort by Microsoft, it comes at a cost of performance deterioration. Also, it eats your bandwidth bringing down the overall performance of your PC. So to turn it off and effectively speed up Windows 10.
1. Open Settings and then click on Update and Security.

2. Here, click on Advanced Options.

3. Now, scroll down and click on Delivery Optimization.

4. Finally, turn off the toggle below Allow download from other PCs. You are done.

Method 9: Disable OneDrive syncing

OneDrive is the built-in synchronization service in Windows that allows you to sync your files to the cloud and access them on any PC using the same OneDrive account. This can be a useful feature, however, the automatic syncing is likely to slow down your PC. You can easily sync an important file to OneDrive manually once automatic synch is disabled. To see whether OneDrive syncing is affecting your Windows 10 performance: Right-click on the OneDrive icon on the right side of the taskbar; Click Pause syncing and choose a time period. If you experience an improved performance of your computer during the pause, follow the steps below to turn off syncing and choose an alternative way to back up your computer that doesn't come at the cost of reducing your computer’s performance.
1. Right-click the OneDrive icon and select Settings > Account.
2. Choose Unlink this PC > Unlink account.
The seven methods above are what you can do to make your Windows 10 faster while booting/running or for gaming by changing your computer settings. The next three solutions utilize third-party software to easily perform advanced tasks to speed up your Windows 10 system.