For manual changes, you use Task Manager for startup, services.msc for services, Performance Options for visual effects and Settings for power mode. Disabling the wrong service can stop Wi-Fi or printing, and Windows keeps no record of your changes.

The program uses a catalog of service recommendations and leaves protected Windows services alone. A slider lets you trade visual polish for speed. You can switch the power plan in the same window and undo changes to startup entries.
Boost to the max pauses background processes without windows while you work and restores them automatically. Game Boost enables Windows Game Mode with graphics and network tweaks for play sessions, covered on our game optimizer software page.

We don't promise a percentage. Expect more improvement if you have many startup launchers, less if startup is already clean. Use Storage Sense for disk cleanup. A hard drive still needs an SSD. Every function runs in a 30-day trial.

Turbo PC OptimizerTune startup apps, services and power settings in one place, with a restore point before each batch.

 Download

If your PC crawls just after boot, launchers and updaters may be trying to update in the background at once. Wait five minutes and check Task Manager again. If the list calms down, follow the startup steps above.

Right-click a process that stays busy and choose Search online to identify it. For disk activity, type resmon in Start. Resource Monitor shows reads and writes by process. TechRadar's free speed-up guide also recommends Autoruns from Microsoft Sysinternals, a free tool with far more startup detail than the Startup apps tab.

If apps open quickly but web pages drag, your connection is the bottleneck. Follow the guide to increase download speed on PC.

Most home PCs have unwanted applications at the startup: a game launcher you use only on Saturdays, or a video editor's helper needed twice a month. If you would not miss an app in the first ten minutes after boot, it can wait until you click it.

For entries marked Not measured under Startup impact, judge by name and publisher. As Computerworld explains, Disable prevents startup launch; it removes nothing.

For services, fast startup and the rest of the boot sequence, see how to make Windows startup faster.

Long-time forum regulars call most optimizer suites snake oil. Many users with modern hardware say they no longer feel any benefit. Their sharpest complaint concerns registry cleaners enabled by default: after a long report of "problems fixed", something fails to start on reboot.

Microsoft's support page suggests its own free PC Manager. Volunteers on its answers forum say third-party optimizers are not generally recommended because they can cause other issues. Judge a program by what it changes and whether you can roll those changes back.

Turbo PC Optimizer applies named tweaks rather than scanning the registry for "errors". Download any program from the vendor's own site. In search results, click the organic result not the ad. Close pop-ups offering unsolicited PC fixes.

Type defragment in Start and open Defragment and Optimize Drives. Check Media type to see whether each drive is a hard disk or solid state drive. IT Pro found that defragging can make an appreciable difference on an older hard drive. For those drives, click Optimize and let it finish. For an SSD, leave Windows' scheduled optimization unchanged.

In Task Manager, open Performance. Under Disk 0, look for HDD or SSD. If it reads HDD and disk use hits 100% at boot or when apps open, tweaks cannot overcome the drive's limit.

Open your usual apps and tabs and watch Memory for a few minutes. With headroom left, RAM is not the problem. A graph pinned near the top means Windows is swapping to disk; adding RAM will help more than changing settings. Before buying, try the built-in steps to free up memory on PC. One app may be holding most of it.

Tweaks will not make a ten-year-old laptop with a spinning drive feel like a brand new machine. The IEEE Computer Society agrees: even the best software strategies may improve such a PC only marginally.
Keep startup short, use one browser with few tabs and skip heavy antivirus suites on top of Windows Security. Back up your files before a clean reinstall through Settings > System > Recovery > Reset this PC. It clears years of leftovers, but you will need to reinstall all apps.

For an old gaming PC, the guide to optimize PC for gaming shows how to make PC run faster for games with Game Mode, graphics drivers and in-game options.

Open Event Viewer, go to Applications and Services Logs > Microsoft > Windows > Diagnostics-Performance > Operational and filter by ID 100. Record boot times for three to five restarts, make one change and repeat. Time your heaviest app opening with a phone stopwatch too.

Most lists, Microsoft's included, present a dozen fixes as equal. Measurements show that a few account for most of the gain, depending on your hardware. If the free steps and a malware scan leave your times unchanged, check the RAM and SSD section.

• Laptop Mag: improve boot times in Windows 10 why limiting startup processes gives a measurable boot gain
• How-To Geek: tips for speeding up your Windows PC when turning off Windows Search indexing makes sense