If you want to optimize Windows 10, take a few minutes and try these tips to speed up your PC and make it less prone to performance and system issues.

How to speed up Windows 10

If you want to optimize Windows 10, take a few minutes and try these tips to speed up your PC and make it less prone to performance and system issues.

Deactivate transparency

In addition to disabling shadows, animations, and visual effects, you should also disable the transparency effects that Windows 10 uses for the Start menu, taskbar, and Action Center. It's a surprising amount of work for Windows to create these transparency effects, and disabling them can make a difference in system performance.

To do this, select Personalization > Colours in the settings, scroll down to "Transparency effects" and move the slider to Off.

 Activate automatic Windows maintenance

Every day, Windows 10 carries out maintenance work on your PC behind the scenes. For example, it performs Security scans and system diagnostics to make sure everything is up to date and automatically fixes problems when it finds them. This ensures that your PC runs at optimum performance. By default, this automatic maintenance is performed every day at 2:00 a.m. as long as your device is connected to a power source and in the Idle state is located.

However, it is possible that the function has been accidentally switched off or that your PC has not been connected to the power supply for a while so that maintenance has not been carried out. You can ensure that the function is activated and performed every day and perform it manually if necessary.

Start the Control Panel app and select System and Security > Security and Maintenance. In the "Maintenance" section under "Automatic maintenance", click "Start maintenance" if you want it to run now. If you want to ensure that maintenance is performed every day, click on "Change maintenance settings". On the screen that appears, select the time you want maintenance to run and check the box next to "Allow scheduled maintenance to wake the computer at the scheduled time". Then click OK.

 Remove bloatware

Sometimes the biggest factor slowing down your PC isn't Windows 10 itself, but bloatware or adware that hogs CPU and system resources. Adware and bloatware are particularly insidious as they may have been installed by your computer's manufacturer. You'll be amazed at how much faster your Windows 10 PC runs when you get rid of them.

First, run a system scan to find adware and malware. If you already have a security suite installed, such as Norton Security or McAfee LiveSafe, you can use these. You can also use Windows 10's built-in anti-malware app - just type Windows Defender in the search box, press Enter and then click Scan Now. Windows Defender will scan for malware and remove any it finds. You can also run a Windows VPN to help you avoid getting malware and bloatware on your PC in the first place. However, it is advisable to get a second opinion and use a free tool such as Malwarebytes Anti-Malware. The free version scans for malware and removes what it finds; the paid version offers permanent protection to prevent infection in the first place.

Now you can search for bloatware and get rid of it. Several free programs can do this for you. It's best to run several of them, as no single program can find all the bloatware on your PC. Good choices are PC Decrapifier, Should I Remove It? and SlimComputer.

Defragment your hard disk

The more you use your hard disk, the more it can become fragmented, which can slow down your PC. When a hard disk is fragmented, files are stored randomly on it and it takes a while for Windows to put them together before they are executed.

However, Windows 10 has an integrated defragmentation function that you can use to defragment your hard disk. You can even set it to run automatically so that the hard disk remains constantly defragmented.

To do this, enter defrag in the search field and press the Enter key. On the screen that appears, select the drive you want to defragment. Click on the Optimize button to defragment it. Select multiple hard disks by holding down the Ctrl key and clicking on each hard disk you want to defragment.

If you want to defragment your drive(s) automatically, click on the Change settings button and then check the box next to "Run on schedule". Now select the frequency at which you want the disk(s) to be defragmented by clicking on the drop-down list next to Frequency and selecting Daily, Weekly or Monthly. (Weekly is best.) You can also select multiple drives for defragmentation on this screen.