Q&A for How to Speed Up a Slow Windows Computer for Free

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How do I speed up my PC performance for free?

Luigi Oppido
Computer & Tech Specialist
Luigi Oppido is the Owner and Operator of Pleasure Point Computers in Santa Cruz, California. Luigi has over 25 years of experience in general computer repair, data recovery, virus removal, and upgrades. He is also the host of the Computer Man Show! broadcasted on KSQD covering central California for over two years.

Luigi Oppido

Computer & Tech Specialist

Expert Answer

An easy way to make your computer faster is to increase your RAM. You can do this by uninstalling apps that you don't use much and by deleting files that you no longer need.

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How do I speed up my computer's copying speed?

Natfor gaming

Community Answer

That is connected to your hardware already. Your RAM, Processor, Hard Drive, USB are the ones in control of the copying | reading speed.

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My Gateway laptop is slow. How do I make it speed up the system?

Community Answer

Follow the steps in this article.

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If I delete the history of my previous web searches, will that make my computer faster?

Community Answer

It will make your browser run faster, but most likely not your computer.

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Question

In part 3, the Disk Cleanup gives me the option to clean system files. Should I leave this alone or delete the files?

R2_d2000

Top Answerer

You can delete anything that the Disk Cleanup utility gives you an option to delete. Windows won't let you delete files that are necessary to run the system.

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Does this work for Windows Vista?

Community Answer

Yes, it should work for Windows Vista.

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Why does my laptop run slower now that I've cleared it of viruses?

Community Answer

You should try cleaning temporary files. To do this open the Start menu and type "RUN" in the search bar. Open the application and type in "%temp%". Now you should see a folder with lots of files, which you can delete to increase your computer's speed.

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I keep cleaning up my disk so it can perform quicker, but every time I restart, I encounter an unoptimized disk. Why?

Community Answer

As soon as you remove those files, Windows -- upon booting -- restores the important ones. It is enough if you do this once a week.

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I am cleaning up my computer, how do I know which processes to disable under task manager?

Community Answer

Don't disable processes, just disable the startup programs that you don't use very often, and restart your computer.

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If I put new content on my computer after doing that, will it go slower?

Natfor gaming

Community Answer

It depends on your hardware and the software you download, install, etc., but it's better to manage the things you install and see if you really need them.

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Should I use ctrl, shift, esc, instead of ctrl, alt, delete?

Community Answer

You can. It opens the Task Manager in Windows Vista, 7, 8.1 and 10. Then follow the first method.

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How can I find out if my computer has solid-state drive installed?

Sasa Bozilovic

Community Answer

Press Win+R, type DFRGUI in the command line and press Enter, and look at Media Type. Hard disk drives are safe to optimize, while solid state drives can be damaged from defragmentation.

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Question

Defragment and Optimize will not open. Tried to run as administrator, won't open. Went to location of the file, still will not open.

Sasa Bozilovic

Community Answer

If you can't launch, then most likely the file is corrupted. Try to reinstall Windows.

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How do I disable all apps run in background. I am trying to reduce the consumption of data for some time?

R2_d2000

Top Answerer

To do this, open Settings, then go to the privacy menu, and in the left pane, scroll down and select, "Background apps". Then, you can switch off the main switch at the top.

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