Prevent your PC startup time from slowing down

Don’t let your computer slow down over time

You know how it is with computers. When they’re fresh out of the box, you press the ‘on’ button and voila! Windows has loaded and you’re ready to go.

A few weeks later, you find you can squeeze in a toilet break while waiting for your PC to be ready. Then a cuppa coffee. Then a quick shower. Soon you can’t take it anymore and buy a new desktop (the billionaire option), or suck it up and wait like a dumbass in front of the computer (the more likely option).

Why is your startup time increasing – and how do you stop it?

One major reason is because of the programs that you install. Many of them set themselves to run at startup, which means your computer loads them automatically when you turn it on.

You can see this through the right hand corner of your taskbar, where all the little icons reside. The more icons that pop up during startup, the slower it will be.

To prevent this, you can use the free-to-use Startup Guard, a bite-sized program that allows you to monitor your startup list in real time.

Much like Vista’s UAC, the SUG pops up when a program tries to add itself to the queue and asks you whether to authorise or deny it.

Authorise only the programs that you want to be automatically running when you are using the PC. For the rest that you don’t need, block them. You can manually run them instead, as and when you need them.

Get it here.