Increase Your Computer's Speed by Disabling Start-up Programs

Well! Well! Look at who just popped in from cyberspace! I'm glad you did. Did it take you longer to get here than it used to? Soon as you fill your mug and grab a virtual doughnut, I'll tell you something you can try to speed up your PC.

There are programs that are designed to run automatically when Windows starts. Most software manufacturers design the programs they develop to open in the background where you can’t see any of them running. By doing this, the programs will open right away after you click its icon.

This is practically useful for programs that you often use but for those that you rarely or even never use at all, this could be a great waste of your machine’s precious memory which slows your machine down significantly even at the process of starting up.

This is the reason why you need to inspect these programs and decide for yourself if you really need each to be running in the background.

But the question is, how will you be able to identify the ones that automatically run at startup? This question is sometimes easy to answer because most programs actually add an icon on the notification area located on your taskbar where you can normally find it running.

To disable startup programs, just follow these steps:

1. Click on the “Start” button on the lower left corner of your screen.
2. Type “msconfig” then press “Enter”
3. On the Window that appears, click the startup tab.
4. A list startup programs will appear, you can enable or disable them by clicking on the check box on the left of each program name, checking an item enables it while unchecking disables the program from running in the background.
5. After you choose the programs that you want to disable from startup, click “Apply”.
6. Then click “OK”.

The window will then automatically close. You can also check if the program you just disabled still runs in the background by clicking on the arrow up button at the left side of the notifications area on the right side of your task bar. Clicking it will open a pop up area that shows all running programs in the background. If the program was disabled properly, its icon should not be in this area.

It is recommended that you make inspect this area of your machine from time to time to make sure that there are no useless programs running in the background that takes up some precious memory space so that your machine performs at its best at any given time.

That little idea comes from "Windows Techies Tips and Tricks Newsletter". Just FYI, I followed the procedure with my computer and took out about half of the listed programs - ones I seldom use and it does seem to have made a difference.

See ya, eh!

Bob