Is your Windows laptop or tablet reacting stubbornly again? This does not necessarily have to be due to weak hardware: The right settings in the system are often enough to make the computer faster. We present 9 options that you can use to optimize the performance of your device.
1. Delete unused programs
The biggest burden for Windows is additional software. This not only blocks the hard drive, but also slows down the system. You can easily remove these programs via the Control Panel. To do this, press the Windows icon on the bottom left of your tablet, tap “Control Panel” and select the app.
Here, press “Uninstall programs” in the “Programs” menu item. A list of all installed programs will appear, which you can delete at will. It is important to find out beforehand which programs can actually be deleted without causing problems afterwards. Known unused apps are, for example, games, Skype or Paint.
2. Clear cache
Another trick to get your Windows PC running faster is to clear the cache. Programs collect data in the cache in order to be able to retrieve it more quickly at a later point in time. Over time, however, superfluous data material also accumulates, which burdens the runtime.
Search for the app with the name “Disk Cleanup” using the search function. Then select the memory that you want to clean up. After Windows checks how much memory can be freed up by the process, you can select which data you want to delete in the detail view. In addition, you can see how much memory will be freed by deleting the individual data.
3. Optimize Windows / remove unnecessary programs
Windows 10 Pro is part of the standard equipment of many robust tablets nowadays. However, besides numerous benefits, the Pro version also comes with a lot of unnecessary ballast. “Bonus programs” like Groove Music, Microsoft OneNote or the Xbox Game Bar are hardly used and therefore only eat up memory unnecessarily.
To remove these programs, you need the “Windows PowerShell” program. To do this, open the Start menu and type in “Windows PowerShell”. Please note that you have to run the program as administrator. A window with a blue background opens. There you can now enter various commands. If your PowerShell is not yet activated, type “Get-Execution-Policy” into the blue window and confirm afterwards.
An overview of the commands to delete the respective programs can be found in the following table.
| apps to be deleted | powershell command |
| alarm and clock | Get-AppxPackage *windowsalarms* | Remove-AppxPackage |
| film & TV | Get-AppxPackage *zunevideo* | Remove-AppxPackage |
| Photos | Get-AppxPackage *photos* | Remove-AppxPackage |
| Groove-Music | Get-AppxPackage *zunemusic* | Remove-AppxPackage |
| Camera | Get-AppxPackage *windowscamera* | Remove-AppxPackage |
| Maps | Get-AppxPackage *windowsmaps* | Remove-AppxPackage |
| Calender & Mail | Get-AppxPackage *communicationsapps* | remove-appxpackage |
| OneNote | Get-AppxPackage *onenote* | Remove-AppxPackage |
4. Switch off telemetry data
In software engineering, telemetry refers to the collection of raw data that is transferred to the developer via automatic data transmission by a service running in the background. There are several ways to restrict or completely disable this feature.
To do this, open the settings and tap the “Privacy/Privacy” button in the window. In the next window, press the “Feedback & Diagnostics” tab on the left and then set Diagnostics and Usage Data to Basic.
With the help of the “Windows PowerShell” software already introduced in the previous point, telemetry can also be disabled. To do this, open PowerShell as described above and enter the following commands:
Get-WindowsErrorReporting
Disable-WindowsErrorReporting
Enable-WindowsErrorReporting
5. Prevent automatic program starts
6. Use Windows Autostart
As already described in the previous point, a large number of programs in autostart mode can slow down your device. Therefore, you should consider beforehand for which programs this feature is really necessary.
To add Autostarts, open the Start menu, type “Run” and launch the program. Enter the command “shell:startup” and confirm with “OK”. After that, the autostart folder will open. Add here all files or programs that you want to open with the start of Windows.
In the folder “C:\Programs” (default) you will find your installed programs as well as the associated EXE files for the startup. Only add shortcuts of the files to the autostart folder, not copies. To do this, select the EXE file of the program and use the “Create shortcut” option under “Send to”. Then move the shortcuts from the desktop to the Autostart folder.
After that, perform a reboot to check the success of the measure.
7. Optimize your browser
Your Internet browser can also have a big impact on your tablet’s speed. Google’s Chrome browser is usually ahead in speed tests and leaves Firefox, Opera and Internet Explorer behind. Only Microsoft Edge can keep up in terms of speed and is also preinstalled on devices with Windows 10 Pro.
Unnecessary plug-ins, extensions or apps also slow down the performance. To remove them, click “More tools and extensions” in the menu. You can either disable or delete the extensions that you do not use. To do so, uncheck “Enabled” or click “Remove”.
8. Switch off visual effects
Windows 10 does not only stand out from its predecessor with technical innovations, but also with a fancy design including many visual effects. These include animations, the refinement of edges or the display of window shadows. However, these effects take up computing power.
If performance is more important than the visual effects, it is worth deactivating them. To do this, type “Customize Windows appearance and performance” in the taskbar search box and select the appropriate search result. Then select the “Customize for optimal performance” option. Alternatively, you also have the option to specify custom settings. To do this, manually select those effects that should be displayed.
9. Disable Cortana
Cortana is the pre-installed voice assistant in Windows 10. There are several reasons to uninstall it, because there are always problems with the little helper. In addition, not all Cortana functions are available in Germany. If you do not use Cortana, you can simply block or uninstall the assistant.
This is the fastest and easiest way to get rid of Cortana: In the task manager, you will find the “Cortana” entry under the “Startup” tab. Select it and then tap on “Deactivate” at the bottom right. The next time you restart your tablet, Cortana will no longer open automatically. This setting can be reset via Windows updates.
You can permanently and completely uninstall Cortana from Windows 10 via Windows Powershell or the registry.
To remove Cortana via the PowerShell
- search for “Windows PowerShell” in the Windows search.
- right-click it or long-press the touch screen to open the context menu.
- Select “Run as administrator” here.
- Confirm the question whether changes can be made to your device through this app with “Yes”.
- The PowerShell program opens.
- Now enter the command “Get-AppxPackage -allusers Microsoft.549981C3F5F10 | Remove-AppxPackage”.
- Confirm with the Enter key – Cortana will then be uninstalled for all users of the PC.
- For a short time, a green status message appears, indicating that PowerShell is working. Then the previous display appears again.
- You have successfully uninstalled Cortana, no further message is displayed.
Additionally, you can delete all data from Cortana with the following command:Remove-AppxProvisionedPackage -Online -PackageName Microsoft.549981C3F5F10_1.1911.21713.0_neutral_ ~ _8wekyb3d8bbwe
Conclusion
At first glance, memory optimization sounds like a very costly and cumbersome process. But quite the opposite is true. Many of our listed tips can be done in a few minutes and will make your tablet shine again in terms of performance. More modern and powerful tablets offer a higher performance than older models.
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