How Can You Improve Computer Performance in Windows OS?

Is your sluggish computer driving you insane? Although the modern Windows system is fast, the performance will degrade over time owing to various causes such as compatibility difficulties and bugs, viruses or other malware, hardware problems, etc.

It’s inevitable as software becomes more demanding, how your PC reacts to these changes can have a big impact on its performance.

However, it is not yet time to begin looking for a successor. A few tips and methods may also help you speed up your PC and maintain it in good working order. Thus, in this post, we’ll show you some ways to speed up the computer and improve computer performance, either desktop or laptop.

How to improve computer performance for Windows OS?

Way 1. Restart PC

If your computer suddenly slows, then you can reboot it to end the error program. Sometimes the background programs may have some errors during the process.

The computer normally ends the programs and processes when the device resumes and the data put into memory is also cleaned, which aids in the resolution of day-to-day performance and stability difficulties caused by keeping the operating system running for an extended period of time.

Way 2. Disable the apps at the startup

In Windows, many programs will register to start automatically upon startup. They will continue to run in the background, wasting system resources and slowing down the experience.

So, while attempting to speed up Windows, it is advised that you restrict the number of programs that execute during startup.

Step 1. Open Settings > Apps > Startup.

Step 2. Click the Sort by menu and select the Startup impact option.

Step 3. Turn off the toggle switch for any unnecessary app especially those marked as "High impact" by the system.

Way 3. Remove unnecessary software

Your computer comes pre-installed with a variety of software that most users would never use, but which can consume many system resources and disk space. These are generally identified by a pop-up encouraging you to update an application you've never used before.

Step 1. Click on the "Start" button and visit the “All apps” menu

Step 2. You can view a list of the applications you have installed - and the ones you haven’t. Once you find the program you want to uninstall, right-click on the icon to see the "Options" menu

Way 4. Move large apps and folders to another location

It might be difficult for users to select which app needs to be removed because when you open the list, you may find all installed apps are needed. However, they really take up too much available space on the disk, including their large data files.

In this case, you can try AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional to move the large programs to another drive/disk to release more resources from your system drive. This tool is a disk and partition manager for Windows 11/10/8/8.1/7/XP. The “App Mover” feature can help you move installed programs and folders after scanning the disk to recognize all movable apps and folders. When the process is finished, you can run your programs from the new storage path and the files will be stored in the new location.

Step 1. Install and run AOMEI Partition Assistant, click “Free up” > “App Mover”.

Step 2. In the new window, click “App Mover”. If you wish to move Users folders or Profiles folders, you can click “Move Folders”.

Step 3. In the pop-up window, choose the partition that you want to free up via moving apps (here is partition C) and click “Next”.

Step 4. In the window, all movable apps on the C drive will be listed. You can choose one or multiple apps that you need to move and the destination partition. Then click “Move” to execute the operation.

Step 5. Confirm that you have closed the apps that you will move from C drive to D drive. Then, click "OK".

Step 6. Wait for the move process to complete. Then, click "Finish".

Way 5. Add more RAM

RAM on your computer serves as the computer's short-term data center. When it is overburdened, it might produce slow results. To check what your PC is presently working on, open Task Manager from the Start menu or by hitting Ctrl + Shift + Esc, and then select Performance > Memory.

8GB of RAM is plenty for a typical business PC to deliver the fast surfing speeds and multi-tasking that the ordinary PC user is likely looking for in performance.

If you want your computer to be speedier for gaming, you might consider upgrading RAM to 16GB or even 32GB. The quantity of RAM might be exorbitant and pricey for the ordinary computer user, so make sure to research what RAM storage capacity your computer model has. RAM is often installed into a predetermined number of slots.

By the way, make sure your PC can handle the update before purchasing new RAM sticks. The maximum RAM your computer can support is the lower limit of what your motherboard and operating system can support, and you'll need to determine whether your PC supports DDR3 or DDR4 RAM.

Way 6. Upgrade the system disk

For short-term data, there’s RAM; for data storage, you’ll need a hard disk. The disk is for carrying all your files, programs, and systems.

SSD and HDD are both types of computer storage devices. The typical storage device with a metal platform is the HDD. You must put up with the sound of HDDs spinning. HDD has been increasingly popular in recent years. However, it is out-of-date equipment in terms of today's requirement for running speed and higher performance.

SSD is the storage device of the future. It keeps data on a little chip without the platform's voice whirling. The speed is substantially quicker than HDD since it is read and written with chips. As a result, many users want to replace HDDs with SSDs.

To safely replace your disk, we suggest you directly clone the disk to avoid reinstalling the system and all your programs. Luckily, AOMEI Partition Assistant can also help you. Its “Disk Clone Wizard” function can clone a hard disk to another one and it offers 2 cloning methods. And during the procedure, you can resize the SSD partition.

Here are the details.

Step 1. In the main interface of AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional, please click “Clone” and then “Clone Disk”.

Step 2. Select a copying method you need from "Clone Disk Quickly" and "Sector-by-Sector Clone". Here we select “Clone Disk Quickly” as an example.

Step 3. Select the Windows system disk as the source disk and hit on “Next”.

Step 4. Then select the SSD drive as the destination disk and click “Next”.

Step 5. Now, you can also resize partitions just being created on the SSD drive.

Step 6. Read the subsequent boot note, click “Finish” and then click “Apply” to execute the pending operation.

Tip: If you want to move OS only, you can choose the “Migrate OS to SSD” feature.

Way 7. Check for malware and viruses

It's nearly difficult not to come across a virus when surfing the web, but the new Windows Defender program has made it easier than ever to identify malware that may be creating severe problems on your computer. Third-party tools are equally simple to install and can be just as successful in eliminating malware or viruses.

Way 8. Regularly clean junk file

It's never a good idea to run Windows with a nearly full hard disk, whether it's an HDD or an SSD because the performance and speed will be greatly affected.

If the computer has relatively recent hardware and you notice that software, managing files, and other operations are taking longer to finish, it is most likely due to a lack of space on the disk. This usually becomes apparent once the drive has been full to roughly 70% of its overall capacity.

To release more space on the drive, users need to regularly clean the system and disk to remove unnecessary files.

To execute the basic clean tasks, Disk Cleanup and Storage Sense can help you clean your disk.

Step 1. Press Windows + S, search for Disk Cleanup, and double-click the search result to open this tool.

Step 2. In the pop-up window, select the drive you want to clean up from the drop-down menu and click OK.

Step 3. Wait patiently until the tool finishes scanning this drive. Then, in the new window, click Clean up system files to scan for more system cache.

Click "Start" and "Settings" in turn, then click "System". In the new window, click "Storage" and turn on "Storage Sense".

But if you want deep cleaning, you can use the “PC Cleaner” function of AOMEI Partition Assistant. It can scan the system and disks to filter all junk files and obsolete files that hide in the deep location. With only one click, you can get rid of all junk files.

To sum up

To improve computer performance, you can try some of the above methods. AOMEI Partition Assistant is a practical tool with multiple helpful features. Besides the functions we’ve mentioned, it can also convert the disk to GPT/MBR without cleaning data, convert file systems between NTFS and FAT32 without formatting, wipe/erase the disk, etc.

What’s more, there is the Server Edition for Windows Server 2025/2022/2019/2016/2012(R2)/2008(R2)/2003.