Tech Tuesday this weeks will start my Windows Troubleshooting Tips series. For this week and the rest of the month of January I will be discussing common Windows errors/ issues and how to fix them. Most of the solutions that I will be presenting here are simple quick fixes. So with that said I will keep myself within simple errors and issues that most of us encounter everyday.
Let's start this series with one common source of annoyance, when Windows computer boots up slow. We are all familiar with that at some point I guess. So, you may ask, why does your computer boots up slow?
A slow Microsoft Windows boot up (it's when you turn on your computer) can be caused by a wide variety of issues. I will be discussing below some suggestions and tips that can address this issue and help speed up your computer at startup.
I have several computers and some of them tend to boot up slower than the others and the reason for that is those computers run startup programs. In which case, you may need to disable those startup programs.
What are startup programs? These are programs that are loading up as the computer starts up, these remain active in memory, and are often one of the main causes of a slow boot in Windows. Disabling programs you don't often use from automatically starting up each time the computer boots can increase the boot time. You can do this manually (I will make a separate post about this promise!) or you can opt to use a memory optimizer program, which can disable any program in any of the locations programs use to start themselves automatically.
Another thing you may want to check into is your hard disk drive space. You need to have at least 250MB of free available hard disk drive space in your computer or this will decrease your computer's boot time. So you may want to make you have at least 250MB disk space available.
Next would be make sure our computer has the latest drivers as well as any available Microsoft Windows updates! Most of the time, corrupt, incorrect, and/or out-of-date drivers can cause a number of different issues, so make sure to update them in a timely manner.
Adding more memory (RAM) to your computer can also increase the overall performance of your computer and the load times of your computer. Right now, most computers run a minimum of 1GB of memory, if your computer is running less than that, you may consider an upgrade!
How often do you Defrag and do Scandisk? Running Microsoft ScanDisk and Defrag and other similar disk utilities on the computer can help check if the hard disk drive has no errors, and at the same time make sure the data on the hard disk drive is organized in the most efficient method. I usually do this once in every few months. And if you are not doing this, you may start this one now. (I will make another post on this one too!)
You may try a registry cleaner. Though not really often recommended, in some cases this helps improve the computers overall performance including that of the Windows startup. (I will try to post more information on registry cleaners in the coming weeks.)
If all the above tips have been tried ans still your computer boots up slow, you may want to format and reinstall. Yikes! That means you need to erase everything and re-install Windows. This will clean your computer and make it like new. (I will also try to make another post on how to backup your files as you might need to do that before formatting your computer.)
Another alternative solution to this is to set your computer to hibernate mode rather than turning it off. This will also let you startup your computer faster.
I know you may have questions related to this post and please feel free to leave them in the comment section and I will try to address them come next Tuesday. I hope you learn something new today!
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