5. Disable programs on startup

So you’ve removed all the programs you thought you didn’t need, but what about the ones you still use every now and again? If you want to keep programs for occasional use, you can still save on speed by disabling them from loading at startup. It’s helpful to have some programs launch on startup – a browser perhaps, or your favourite music software – however a lot can be left off of startup and called on when you need them.

You have to be a little bit careful here, because some services are required by Windows to function properly. Often, these will be small, lightweight services that won’t make a lot of difference to speed anyway, but only disable programs you recognise and you can see are large files.