Have you ever wondered why your work computer, which seems relatively new, is so much slower than your old laptop bought 5 years ago? Does it take more than 10 minutes just to start up? Most of the time it is slow because of all the applications running in the background and most of them you probably don’t even use at all. In the screenshot below, you will see all the applications that start and stay in the background when booting your computer.
You can simply uncheck all the programs you know you don’t need. If you are unsure of what the program is for, just leave it checked or search on the web to get more information.
To get to the above window:
For Windows Vista and Windows 7 users,
- Click on the Start button a.k.a. Windows Pearl.
- Type “msconfig” in the search and then hit Enter.
- Go to the Startup tab.
For Windows XP users,
- Click on the Start button, then Run.
- Type “msconfig” in the search and then hit Enter.
- Go to the Startup tab.
If you see something fishy in that list, for example “asd52hfd63d.exe” with “Unknown” as the Manufacturer, I would strongly suggest starting a virus scan. Often malware are in this location to start running as soon as you boot your computer.
