How to Keep Unnecessary Programs from Running in the Background

After having looked through the available laptop deals, you have chosen your perfect computer. When you receive it, it seems to start up instantly. After a couple months, the computer seems to slow down or take forever to get started up. The reason for this slowdown is that you have a ton of programs running in the background on your computer. The more programs running in the background of your computer, the harder it has to work, and the slower it handles the programs you want to use.

Now that you understand why your computer is running slowly, what can you do to fix it? There are several ways that you can get your computer running nearly as fast as the day you bought it. The first thing is to uninstall unnecessary programs. To do this, go to your “Start Menu” and then click on “Control Panel.” Look for “Programs and Features,” or if you are in Category View, find “Programs.” Once you do this, a list of programs that are installed on your computer will pull up. This may take a minute or two.

From here, you can choose to uninstall any programs that you know you do not need. Many times computer manufacturers will load up new computers with trial software that you never use. Feel free to get rid of all of them. But be very, very careful when uninstalling programs. If you are unsure if you need the program, leave it. Also, leave in all Windows and Microsoft related updates.

The next step in speeding up your computer is to clear out the start-up items. Most programs, when installed, put themselves into your computer’s start-up. This means that even if you only use the program once a week, it starts up when Windows does automatically, and it stays running in the background. If you are not using a program but it is still running, it is just slowing you down. To solve this, go to your “Start Menu.” There will be an area to type in where you should type “msconfig” and hit enter. It may ask if you want to continue. If it does, choose to allow it.

You will then be in the Windows System Configuration Utility. On the top right, to the left of the “Tools” tab, click on the “Startup” tab. Click on the “Disable All” button at the bottom of the screen. You can either choose to manually start up any items you want to open when Windows loads, or go through and check the programs you want to open with Windows. Once you restart your computer, it will probably feel like it is brand new.

Author Bio: Walter Carlyle is a Software Developer and IT Professional for over 8 years