This guest post is written by Liz Vasileva is a technology writer. She loves everything to do with computers, classical music, opera, and travelling.

It’s not news that computers become slower as time goes by. Why? A lot of reasons – you install and uninstall software, save your files, download stuff from the Internet, just browse the Internet, and so on. Sometimes you need new hardware, but most of the time you can improve computer performance without having to buy any hardware or software.

In this post I’m going to share with you top 7 ways to speed up your PC. All tricks are very easy to do and absolutely risk-free. Actually, some of them will speed up even a new computer!

1) Optimize Appearance Settings

Do you really need all the visual effects Windows has to offer? Because they eat up system resources. If you don’t care much about looks, simply do the following:

1. Go to Start, Settings and select Control Panel
2. In the Control Panel, click System and then Advanced tab
3. In the Performance Options window select the Adjust for best performance radio button
4. Click OK to confirm and close the window

This will turn off all visual effects, which is good for less powerful PCs and laptops, but looks ghastly.

If you want Windows to look nice, but don’t want to waste RAM, CPU and put up with a slow computer, you can tweak visual effects in such a way, that Windows will still look nice, but will be faster. So, to combine productivity with looks check these checkboxes:

• Show shadows under menus
• Show shadows under mouse pointer
• Show translucent selection rectangle
• Use drop shadows for icons labels on the desktop
• Use visual styles on windows and buttons

2) Uninstall Programs You Never Use

Having way to many programs installed slows down your PC. So it’s always a good idea to review the list and uninstall applications you never use. I’m sure you’ll find quite a few, especially if you like trying out new software. To manage programs you’ve got installed go to Start – Settings – Control Panel – double-click Add/Remove Programs.

Removing unused applications will free up disk space and make your computer run faster.

3) Uninstall Old Device Drivers

Once you have uninstalled a device, it’s a good idea to remove any device drivers that were left behind. Otherwise those drivers will still be consuming system resources.

When you install a device, you also install its drivers and they get called each time you boot up your PC. Then you decide to through away your old printer (just an example). You disconnect it and you think you’re done. But actually the drivers are still there and your computer will still load them on startup.

To remove those drivers:

1. Press the Windows key + the Break key on your keyboard. System Properties box will appear

2. Select the Advanced tab

3. Click Environmental Variables

4. Under System variables click New

5. In the variable box type devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices

6. Type 1 in the variable value text box

7. Click Ok to return to the System Properties box

8. Click Ok again

9. Go to the Device Manager tab

10. Click View – Show hidden devices

Then you will need to expand all the branches and look for washed out icons. Those icons show unused device drivers that you can remove. Highlight the driver you want to delete, right-click on it, and choose Remove. Delete only washed out icons. All the other icons show drivers of connected and used devices. If you delete them, your devices will stop functioning properly.

4) Speed Up Windows Explorer

If starting Windows Explorer takes longer than you like, it is probably because it automatically looks for network files, folders, and shared devices. If you use none of them, change the settings and Windows Explorer will open faster:

1. Open Windows Explorer
2. Click on Tools menu
3. Then click on Folder Options
4. Click on the View tab
5. Find Automatically search for network folders and printers check box and uncheck it
6. Click Apply, then click OK
7. Reboot your PC

5) Disable Indexing

Disk Indexing is supposed to speed up your search, but it uses a lot of RAM. Also it can often make your computer pretty slow and loud. I prefer waiting a second longer for my file and folder search result to hearing my hard drive thrash. To disable indexing:

1. Go to Start

2. Click Settings

3. Click Control Panel

4. Double-click Add/Remove Programs

5. Click Add/Remove Windows Components

6. Uncheck Indexing Services

7. Click Next and then click Finish

Done!

6) Make the Recycle Bin Smaller

Modern hard disks are pretty large, so the default 10% for the Recycle Bin is too much. So why waste space – you will be OK with 5–10Gb, which will usually be from 2 to 5% of the hard drive space.

Let’s make your Recycle Bin smaller:

1. Go to desktop

2. Right – click on the Recycle Bin icon

3. Select Properties

4. Use the slider to choose how large you want the Bin to be

5. Click Apply, then click OK

7) Delete Old Restore Points

Do you use the Disk Cleanup tool to free up disk space? If yes, good for you. If not – you should.

But did you know that it has more options and that you can free up even more disk space by deleting out-of-date restore points? Check out how:

1. Go to Computer and right-click the hard drive
2. Select Properties
3. On the General tab click Disk Cleanup
4. Then go to More Options tab, find System Restore and click Clean up
   
5. 

Old system restore points can take up a lot of disk space, which I’m sure you want to use for other things. Anyway, you don’t need them all! Don’t worry, the most recent restore point will still be there to save you in case of an emergency.

Now your PC should run faster. Remember that computers need maintenance, so don’t forget to clean the disks and defrag them regularly, at least once a month.