Home > Windows OS and management FOTOLIA

TIP 1 OF 3 A A Part of: Managing Windows 10 performance

11 tips to improve Windows 10

performance
With a few minor tweaks, such as maximizing RAM, disabling visual effects and getting
rid of unnecessary services, you can increase Windows 10 performance.

By Ed Tittel Published: 24 Nov 2020

As an IT professional, you can make a few Windows 10 performance tweaks to help the
OS to run faster.

These 11 tips you should learn are mostly simple and easy fixes. If these options don't
solve your performance issues, then you may need a more comprehensive root-cause
analysis of your managed desktops.

1. Check for the latest Windows update

Microsoft provides two main categories of updates: Feature updates, which Microsoft
releases biannually and include major new features, and Quality updates, which address
security breaches, known bugs and other troubles with Windows 10.

1 of 3 AA +
These updates do occasionally cause their own issues that you may need to address, so
youUpshould
Next look into any known bugs and issues with the latest Windows builds. This

11 tips
could be the roottoofimprove Windows10
your Windows 10performance problems.
How to manage Windows 10 Pow
performance Options in settings

With a few minor tweaks, such as maximizing RAM, Any Windows 10 desktop -- especially one t
Conversely, the issue could be that you haven't applied the latest Windows 10 update.
disabling visual effects and getting rid of unnecessary access remotely -- needs special attention f
You should stay up to date with the latest updates whenever possible, after testing them,
and stay up to date on the latest known issues and bugs with each OS version.

2. Minimize the paging file

The Windows paging file, or pagefile, is sometimes called Windows 10 virtual memory. It
supports system crash dumps and enables the system to use physical RAM more
efficiently by writing some file content to a hard disk if the main memory is near capacity.

On most Windows 10 systems with 8 GB of RAM or more, the OS manages the size of
the paging file nicely. The paging file is typically 1.25 GB on 8 GB systems, 2.5 GB on 16
GB systems and 5 GB on 32 GB systems. For systems with more RAM, you can make
the paging file somewhat smaller. You could trim the paging file to 2 GB on a 16 GB
system, for example, or to 3.5 GB on a 32 GB system without running into any noticeable
performance problems.

As a result, one of the Windows 10 performance tweaks you can make is to reduce the
size of the paging file on such systems. You should avoid altering the paging file on 32-bit
systems, however.

You can minimize the size of the paging file using the following steps:

1. Open System Properties. Right-click the Start button, select Control Panel >
System and then click Change Settings.

2. In the System Properties dialog box, in the Advanced tab, click the Settings button
in the Performance

3. In the Performance Options dialog box, in the Advanced tab, click the Change
button in the Virtual Memory

4. In the Virtual Memory dialog box, jot down the minimum allowed, recommended and
currently allocated paging file sizes in the last section. Then, uncheck the box that
says Automatically manage paging file size for all drives. If more than one drive
1 of 3 AA +
 appears in the available drives list, click your system drive, which is the one you
installed
Up Next Windows 10 on -- usually C:.
11 tips to improve Windows 10 How to manage Windows 10 Pow
5. Click Custom Size, and then type values into theOptions
performance Initial Size (MB) and Maximum
in settings
Size (MB) Make the maximum size 1 GB or up toAny
With a few minor tweaks, such as maximizing RAM,
4 Windows
GB, depending on the amount of
10 desktop -- especially one t
RAM you installed
disabling -- 64
visual effects andGB or rid
getting more.
of unnecessary access remotely -- needs special attention f

6. Click Set, then OK.

After these steps, close all the open dialog boxes and restart your computer.

If you have multiple physical drives -- not just multiple partitions of a single drive -- you
can increase the system speed by splitting the paging file across two drives. Allocate
about 300 MB of the paging file to the system drive, select the second drive in the Virtual
Memory dialog box, set the initial size and maximum size values, and click Set.

3. Use ReadyBoost
Microsoft ReadyBoost is a Windows feature that offers a basic disk caching utility. This
utility can cache files with a removable flash-based drive to improve Windows 10
performance without requiring additional memory.

The requirements for this feature are the following:

1 millisecond or less access time;

75 MBps throughput for random writes of 1 MB;

At least 64 KB of available storage; and

5 MBps throughput for random reads of 4 KB.

To use this utility, you should attach the removable drive to the device, right click it in the
Windows 10 File Explorer and choose the Properties option. Then, you should select the
ReadyBoost tab and click OK. If the drive is not compatible with ReadyBoost, the tab will
not appear.

4. Disable visual effects in the UI

Desktop animations and shadows in the background make the UI look great, but they can
consume significant CPU and memory.
1 of 3 AA +
 ED TITTEL
To turn off these features, open
Up Next

11 tips to improve Windows 10

w System Properties. In the
How toSystem
manageProperties
Windows 10dialog
Pow box,
performance Options in settings
in the Advanced tab, click the
With a few minor tweaks, such as maximizing RAM, Any Windows 10 desktop -- especially one t
Settings button in the
disabling visual effects and getting rid of unnecessary access remotely -- needs special attention f
Performance section. In the
Visual Effects tab, you can
uncheck all the options
highlighted in yellow (Figure 1).

5. Free up disk space

Other Windows 10 performance
tweaks, such as turning off
unneeded system services, can
speed up the OS. You can
safely disable services such as
ASP.NET State Service,
Portable Device Enumerator
Service and Windows Media
Player Network Sharing
Service.

Even though Windows 10

k Figure 1: Disable visual effects in Windows 10 versions since 1607 haven't

benefited much, if at all, from
service grooming, with underpowered 32- or 64-bit systems, disabling some services can
still provide a modest performance boost.

To disable services, open the Services console by entering services.msc in the Run
box. Right-click the Start menu and select Run, or press WinKey + R. In the Services
console, right-click the service you want to turn off and select Properties. In the
Properties dialog box, click the Stop button and then select Disabled from the Startup
type drop-down menu (Figure 2).

Be sure to disable one service at a time, reboot the computer and use it for a while before
disabling another service. This way, if something
1 of 3 AA +
goes haywire, you'll know which service
 ED TITTEL
you must enable again to fix the
Up Next
11 tips to improve Windows 10
w problem.
How to manage Windows 10 Pow
performance Options in settings
6. Clean and defrag your
With a few minor tweaks, such as maximizing RAM, hard
Any Windows disk -- especially one t
10 desktop
disabling visual effects and getting rid of unnecessary access remotely -- needs special attention f
This tip can only help Windows
10 desktops with a hard disk
Enterprise drive (HDD); desktops with a
9 Desktop solid state drive (SSD) can't g
benefit from this Windows
management method. With that

k Figure 2: Follow these steps to disable a service in

Windows 10
in mind, you can run the local
defragmentation and disk
cleanup tool to optimize the desktop's HDDs. Defragmentation is the process of
rearranging files on a drive to make them easier for the system to access.

To run a defragmentation on your desktop's HDD, navigate to system settings and click
on the Storage tab. From there, you should select the Optimize Drives option. Then you
should click on the HDD and select the Optimize command. The tool handles the rest of
the defrag task from there and will reorganize the drive to make indexing less resource-
intensive and delete any unnecessary temporary files.

7. Disable startup programs

Whittling down the programs that launch automatically when Windows 10 starts can get
you from the power-off state, or a restart, to the desktop more quickly. To manage
Windows 10 startup programs, open the Task Manager and click the Startup tab. Select
the programs you don't want to launch automatically and click Disable. If you really want
to get down and dirty with startup items, use the Windows Sysinternals Autoruns utility
instead.

Windows 10 also has a built-in internet lookup for process names, which makes it easy to
decide which processes to leave enabled and which ones to disable. To use the internet
lookup, right-click any entry and select Search Online. Your default browser opens with a
list of results for that particular program.

1 of 3 AA +
 ED TITTEL
At Windows 10 startup, apps
Up Next

11 tips to improve Windows 10

w that the Startup folder loads
How toare
manage
delayedWindows 10 the
to allow PowOS to
performance Options in settings
load its processes first, which
With a few minor tweaks, such as maximizing RAM, Any Windows 10 desktop -- especially one t
keeps things orderly and makes
disabling visual effects and getting rid of unnecessary access remotely -- needs special attention f
for a speedier experience. You
can reduce startup time even
more by minimizing the app
startup time delay, which

k Figure 3: Adjust the app startup delay in the Windows

Registry
requires using the Windows
Registry Editor:

1. Open the Registry Editor -- exe.

2. Drill down to the following registry key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Serialize.
If the Serialize key does not exist, create it by clicking the Explorer key in the left
pane, selecting Edit > New > Key from the menu bar, typing Serialize to name the
key and pressing Enter.

3. Create a new DWORD value called StartupDelayInMSec and set the value to zero.
To create the DWORD value, right-click the Serialize key in the left pane and select
New > DWORD (32-bit) Value. Rename the value to StartupDelayInMSec. The
value is set to zero by default as shown in Figure 3.

4. Exit the Registry Editor.

The next time you reboot, your computer should start up faster.

8. Reduce the boot delay timeout value

In Windows 10 the boot delay timeout value is set to 30 seconds by default. You can find
the boot delay timeout value in the Boot tab in msconfig.exe.

You can add to your Windows 10 performance tweaks by reducing the boot time value to
10 seconds -- which still leaves enough time to boot in Safe Mode if you need to.
Alternatively, you can set it to zero seconds and use msconfig -- the Boot tab -- or
Settings > Update & Security > Recovery > Advanced Startup to force Windows 10 to
boot in Safe Mode on the next restart. 1 of 3A A +
The Settings method forces an immediate restart, so don't do this until you save your
work
Up and
Next are ready to reboot. The msconfig method requires you to uncheck the Safe

11 tipsbefore
boot checkbox to improve
your Windows 10
next reboot. How to manage Windows 10 Pow
performance Options in settings

With a few minor tweaks, such as maximizing RAM,

If you implement all these Windows 10 performance Any Windows 10 desktop -- especially one t
tweaks to reduce startup times and
disabling visual effects and getting rid of unnecessary access remotely -- needs special attention f
increase memory, you should notice a much faster operating system. Even a few of the
recommendations will earn you a more responsive and enjoyable computing experience.

What is Virtual Memory? What Does it Do?

9. Change power plan

Microsoft offers three power plans with Windows 10 systems, and each of them are
helpful in different use cases. Power saver mode, for example, maximizes battery life at
the cost of performance. On the other hand, High performance mode maximizes the
desktop's performance at the cost of energy use or battery life, depending on whether
your endpoint has a connection to a power source. There is also the option to run the
Balanced power plan, which Microsoft recommends.

If you are having performance issues with Windows 10 desktops, it may be worthwhile to
enable High performance mode. To enable this power plan, you should open the Control
Panel, and then select the Hardware and Sound tab. From there, click on the Power
Options category, and from there you can select the High performance plan, or
whichever plan you'd prefer.

1 of 3 AA +
10. Remove viruses and malware
This
Upmay
Next be an obvious concept; you should always avoid viruses and malware at all
costs. You11likely have
tips to an existing
improve Windowsantivirus
10 and antimalware plan, and
How to manage the best
Windows 10advice
Pow is to
performance Options in settings
follow your existing process to scan the Windows 10 desktop for viruses, malware or any
With a few minor tweaks, such as maximizing RAM, Any Windows 10 desktop -- especially one t
unwelcome software that could be causing issues.
disabling visual effects and getting rid of unnecessary access remotely -- needs special attention f

If you don't have an existing antivirus platform,

then you can use Microsoft's native Virus & Threat Desktop animations
and shadows make the
protection tool, Windows Defender. You can run a
UI look great, but they
scan by navigating to the Windows Defender can consume
significant CPU and

z
Security Center menu, and then select Scan
options. This will prompt the Windows Security memory.

menu to provide four options.

While each of these options have their merits, the

Full scan is the most consistent option, but you can also set up a Custom scan to meet
your organization's needs.

11. Upgrade your hardware

Maximizing the amount of physical RAM can dramatically improve Windows 10
performance. A 32-bit system running Windows 10 can accommodate up to 4 GB of RAM,
and a 64-bit system can handle 128 GB or more, depending on the version of Windows
10 you install and your computer's motherboard.

Memory modules are inexpensive, so consider installing the maximum 4 GB of RAM on a

32-bit system and at least 16 GB on a 64-bit system for everyday use. You should also
buy the fastest RAM that the system will support. Check the computer or motherboard
manufacturer's specifications.

m Next Steps
How to perform Windows 10 disk optimization

m Dig Deeper on Windows OS and management +

1 of 3 AA
 Task Manager Microsoft Windows File
Up Next
Explorer
11 tips to improve Windows 10 How to manage Windows 10 Pow
performance Options in settings

With a few minor tweaks, such as maximizing RAM, Any Windows 10 desktop -- especially one t
disabling visual effects and getting rid of unnecessary access remotely -- needs special attention f
By: Robert Sheldon By: Paul Kirvan

pagefile Troubleshooting the most

common issues with Windows
11

By: Robert Sheldon By: Brien Posey

Latest TechTarget Virtual Desktop

resources

VIRTUAL DESKTOP
A 2 How to run Windows 365 on
Mac
IT teams must be prepared to deliver Windows

WINDOWS SERVER 365 Cloud PCs to all sorts of endpoints -- not just
Windows desktops. Admins can ...

2 Desktop as a service vs. VDI:

What's the difference?
For IT to choose between desktop as a service
vs. VDI, they'll need to decide what's more
important -- security and control or ...

1 of 3 AA +
 Up Next
About Us Contributors
11 tips to improve Windows 10 How to manage Guides
Windows 10 Pow
performance Options in settings
Editorial Ethics Policy Reprints Opinions
With a few minor tweaks, such as maximizing RAM, Any Windows 10 desktop -- especially one t
disabling visual effects and getting rid of unnecessary access remotely -- needs special attention f
Meet The Editors Answers Photo Stories

Contact Us Definitions Quizzes

Advertisers E-Products Tips

Partner with Us Events Tutorials

Media Kit Features Videos

Corporate Site

All Rights Reserved, Copyright 2008 - 2023, TechTarget

Privacy Policy
Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information

1 of 3 AA +