Take the Lag Out of Your Load

Do you find yourself waiting for what seems like an eternity for your computer to start up? Maybe you’re even able to complete puzzles, read whole books, or conquer countries in the time it takes to get everything loaded. As fun as those activities may be, wouldn't it be nicer to just have a computer that loads in a timely fashion? A slow start-up can be caused by several things: full hard drives, viruses, hardware problems, or the like. One of the main causes however is lots of items on start up. Do you notice when your computer first loads that you get a lot of pop-ups from spotify, skype, messenger, the weather app, etc...? All of these can be slowing your computer down. Pulling up these applications on startup, especially large files, can take a lot of processing power from your computer. Below are some easy steps you can follow to clean up your start up list and thereby make your computer faster.

Step 1: Open up “msconfig”

Msconfig deals with various start up settings and boot options as well as some device drivers and windows services. If you’re using windows 7 you’re going to get to it by clicking on the windows symbol at the bottom left hand corner of your screen and typing “msconfig” into the search bar. That should bring up a listing titled "msconfig.exe", click on it to open it up. 

If you’re using windows 8 you’re going to go to your tile screen (you can get to it by clicking on the bottom left hand corner of your screen) and typing “msconfig”, that’ll bring up a page that looks like the image below. From there you can click on the "msconfig.exe" icon.

Step 2: Go to the start-up tab.

Opening msconfig will bring you to the general settings tab. We want to switch to the startup applications and for that we’re going to go to the tab labeled “Startup”.

Step 3: Remove those pesky applications

From here we can start our cleaning. Uncheck the boxes for things you won’t need pre loaded like Itunes, Spotify, Skype, Google taskbar, etc… 

**Warning: some programs are needed on startup in order for your computer to function properly. When removing programs from here only remove those you are 100% sure are not needed! Removing some programs may cause your computer to get stuck while it's loading or even kill your computer completely. If you are unsure about a program it is always best to google it first.**

By taking these applications off start-up you’re not removing them completely from your computer, they will still load when you open them from your desk top, it just doesn’t have them running when you first start your computer. You may notice some apps that don’t necessarily pop-up when you start your computer but they are still listed as being loaded when you first log on, for example Itunes. Turning them off can speed up your startup and your overall computer speed because they may be running in the background and taking up processing power the whole time your computer is on.

Once you have deselected the unimportant start up applications, click apply and then okay. That will close the window and a new one will pop up saying you need to restart your computer for these changes to take effect. You can restart now or wait til later, either way you should notice a change in the number of pop-ups and speed of your computer during your next startup.

Happy Computing!