Useful Tips To Speed Up Windows 8 Or Windows 8.1

By Author: Brooke M. Perry
Total Articles: 84
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PC unresponsiveness, freezes, hangs, and slow loading of apps as well as programs are some of the common issues that may make you feel frustrated and annoyed during crucial work hours. Users might feel that their PCs are not functioning at the same speed at which they were working at the time of first purchase. This might be due to the presence of some viruses, program crashes, over pressurized RAM, unwanted installed apps, and poorly managed data backups. But you’ll need to fix them in order to enjoy optimal productivity with faster speed. No matter what is the reason behind the poor PC performance and slow speed of your device, a few tweaks and tips can set it back to the normal working condition.

In this article, you will read about the useful tips that can help you speed up your Windows 8 or 8.1 devices:

1. Make required changes to the Windows Registry

Registry keys are one of the most crucial codes of a system, hence, it needs to be treated with extra care and should only be touched, if the user knows precisely what he is doing. You can seek help from a tech expert or install ready-made ...
... Registry scripts made available over the Internet to fix several issues that are responsible for your slow PC. These ready-made scripts carry a collection of codes and tweak some settings in the Windows 8 Registry to make your Windows run faster.

These registry modifications are focused on reducing timeout values, commanding Windows to automatically end not responding tasks, and allow the menus to run faster by applying various tweaks to settings.

2. Customize ‘System Properties’ and disable a few features

Your Windows 8 device may come with several bandwidth and hard disk space consuming features, which make your device to slow down over a period of time. By default, the Windows OS is enabled with many eye candy features and effects including animations, and shadow effects that enhance user interface (UI), but adversely affects system’s performance. You can easily customize some system properties and disable such features to enjoy a better speed by following these steps:

Press and hold ‘Win+R’ keys to open ‘RUN’ dialog box, type ‘sysdm.cpl,’ and press ‘Enter.’ This will open ‘System Properties’ window.
Proceed to the ‘Advanced’ tab and click on the ‘Settings’ button, located under the ‘Performance’ section.
Now, you will be required to uncheck several options on the newly opened window including the ones associated with Animation, Fade or slide, taskbar thumbnails, Shadows, Slide and Smooth-scroll list.
Click on the ‘Apply’ button to bring the changes into action and close the window.

3. Make changes in ‘Folder’ options and turn off some unnecessary features

Some unnecessary features may keep your hard disk drive space occupied and thus results in slowing down your computing experience. You can easily disable some features in Windows Explorer to improve Explorer functionality as well as the speed of your device.

Follow these steps to make changes in ‘Folder’ option and disable some unnecessary features:

Open ‘My Computer’ and click on the ‘View’ tab, located on the Ribbon.
Click on the ‘Options’ button, enlisted at the bottom of page to open ‘Folder Options’ window.
Now, go to the ‘View’ tab and uncheck the below mentioned options:

A) Display file size information in folder tips

B) Hide empty drives in the Computer folder

C) Hide extensions for known file types

D) Show encrypted or compressed NTFS files in color

E) Show pop-up description for folder and desktop items

Click on the ‘Apply changes’ button and close the window.

4. Stop unnecessary Windows services that start automatically

Windows 8.1 comes with many built-in services that are scheduled to start automatically with the system startup and are set to always run in the background. Most of the services aren’t required by the system, but they still operate and make the PC slow. Disallowing or disabling such unnecessary services is an essential step to improve system performance. Perform a Google search to look for steps that can help you to locate such Windows services and help to disable them easily.

5. Disable unnecessary programs at system startup

Many unnecessary third party software are scheduled to run with the Windows startup to get loaded into a system’s memory. Some apps and software are required to be loaded at the system startup, but not all of them, hence, these can be easily removed from the startup list to speed up Windows.

To disable unwanted startup items in Windows 8, follow these steps:

In earlier versions of Windows, startup items list can be accessed by using system configuration manager and ‘msconfig’ command. But, Windows 8 makes it to be accessed by using the ‘Task Manager.’
To reach the Task Manager window, right-click on the ‘Taskbar,’ and select the ‘Task Manager’ option. Or press ‘Ctrl+Shift+Esc’ keys together to directly open ‘Task Manager’ using the keyboard shortcuts.
Go to the ‘Startup’ tab, figure out the unwanted items, and click on the ‘Disable’ button to remove them from the startup list.

Now, the disabled program will no longer run whenever you start Windows. It'll only run if you launch it manually.

6. Removing ‘Sound Notifications’ can also help

You might have noticed that your Windows device plays sound for various system events while displaying error messages, device disconnect, battery status, UAC prompt, and many others. Generally, these sound notifications don’t affect system’s performance significantly, but can turn your device a little bit slower in its performance. You can easily disable some or all the sound notifications in Windows 8 and maintain optimal speed by following these steps:

Open ‘Control Panel,’ click on ‘Sound’ icon or open it directly by running ‘mmsys.cpl’ command in Windows 8.
Go to the ‘Sounds’ tab on the ‘Sound’ Window and select ‘(None)’ from ‘Sounds’ drop-down list individually for disabling the desired program event. If you want to disable all sound notifications, then select the ‘No Sounds’ button from ‘Sound Scheme’ drop-down box.
Click on the ‘Apply’ button to adopt the changes and close the window.

Even after following all the above mentioned steps, if you think that you’re not experiencing any remarkable improvement in your system performance, then you should immediately ask for technical assistance. In additional to the above mentioned points, downloading and installing latest updates using Windows Updates can also help in improving your system’s performance. Using the latest drivers for your PC’s hardware, installing only the necessary software, and keeping your antivirus updated with the latest patches and fixes can help you combat against serious performance issues. Always remember to clean your PC from the older backups and previous version of files as they occupy valuable space on hard drive and make PC slow.

About the Author: He is a Technology writer working with Qresolve as a Technical Support Engineer. Brook M. Perry has been offering online tech support to global customers for issues related to laptops, desktops, Mac and devices including iPods, tablets, iPhones. online pc support She caters to the segment of core technology and provides viable solutions to any issues related to technology and software. Her expertise and skills in handling key technology issues is immaculate and quick result bearing.