Whatever yous retrieve of Windows 8 (at MakeUseOf, our opinions are mixed), it'southward certainly speedy. Windows 8 boots faster than previous versions of Windows, has lower retentiveness usage, and has a desktop that feels overnice and snappy. Similar all versions of Windows, Windows 8 has a variety of settings y'all can tweak to speed things upwards and brand it even faster. You tin learn a whole lot about tweaking the OS in our Windows viii guide.

Some of the tips here also apply to previous versions of Windows, but Windows 8 has some new tricks up its sleeve. As always, there are merchandise-offs when using some of the below tricks – at that place's no magic "Go Faster" button.

Disable Fourth dimension-Wasting Animations

Windows 8 (and Windows seven) display animations when you minimize, maximize, open, or close application windows. The animations are slick eye-candy, merely they do introduce a delay. You tin can disable the animations and window transitions will happen instantly, eliminating the filibuster.

To disable the animations, press the Windows key, blazon SystemPerformanceProperties, and printing Enter. Uncheck the Animate windows when minimizing and maximizing selection. You may likewise want to disable some of the other animations, such every bit the Fade or slide menus into view and Fade or slide ToolTips into view. This will brand menus and tooltips snap to attention instead of fading in with an blitheness.

make windows 8 faster

Pinpoint Apps Using Lots of Resources

Windows viii's new task manager allows you to easily pinpoint the programs slowing downwards your computer. To open the Task Director, right-click the desktop taskbar and select Chore Managing director.  Click the More than details option if you don't come across the full interface.

Applications using a lot of resources will be highlighted, making it piece of cake to run into which programs are using up your computer's resources. This list too shows a simplified listing of applications, which is easier to understand and skim than the sometime-manner processes listing (if you prefer the old-style process list, it's still available on the Details tab).

make windows 8 fast

Manage Your Startup Programs

The Windows Chore Managing director at present allows yous to easily disable programs that commencement with your computer. Click the Startup tab in the Task Manager to access these options.

Windows also analyzes how long each program takes to outset and displays this information in the Startup impact column. Select a program and click Disable to forestall information technology from starting with Windows, speeding up your startup process.

make windows 8 fast

Utilise Included Security Programs

Instead of installing tertiary-political party security suites that ofttimes ho-hum down your computer, endeavour using the included security applications. Windows now includes an antivirus – while it's named Windows Defender, it's basically the same as the popular Microsoft Security Essentials application.

make windows 8 fast

Windows 8 too includes a SmartScreen feature, which analyzes how trustworthy programs you download are. Equally in previous versions of Windows, Windows also includes a firewall that blocks incoming connections. If you desire more settings and options, you lot may desire to install a third-party security suite – simply most users volition find that Windows 8's included security programs are finally complete enough to rely on.

Modify Power Settings

Windows 8 uses power plans to decide whether battery life or performance should exist prioritized, only equally previous versions of Windows do. To view your power program settings, press the Windows central, type Ability Programme, click Settings, and printing Enter.

In the default Balanced mode, Windows automatically reduces your CPU's speed when maximize speed isn't needed. This saves power. To squeeze all the performance you tin can out of your hardware, you lot may want to try Loftier performance instead. In High performance mode, your CPU'southward speed is never reduced. It runs at full speed all the fourth dimension.

However, this isn't necessarily a expert thing. Even high-performance gaming PCs are used for web browsing some of the time and information technology doesn't brand sense to run the CPU at full throttle while browsing the web. This just wastes ability and generates additional heat.

Whichever plan you choose, make sure you aren't using Power saver. This is only useful if you want to squeeze equally much battery life out of your laptop as possible.

make windows 8 run faster

Put Your Estimator to Sleep

1 of Windows 8's well-nigh controversial aspects is the mode it buries the Shut Downwards option in a hidden menu. Microsoft wants to encourage yous to employ Slumber manner instead of shutting down your reckoner. When yous utilise Slumber, your calculator goes into a very low-power state that uses just plenty power to keep your programs and open files active in your calculator's RAM. When you come back to your computer, information technology will resume from sleep almost immediately. Using Sleep instead of Close Down can dramatically speed things up when you sit down down at your computer.

You'll discover a Sleep choice under the power push button in the Settings charm. (Printing Windows Key+C, click Settings, click Power, and select Sleep). Your computer's ability button may too be configured to use Sleep automatically. You can change this choice by clicking the Cull what the power buttons do option in the Power Options window mentioned above.

make windows 8 run faster

Optimize Your Difficult Drives

Windows viii includes the standard Deejay Defragmenter, at present named the Optimize Drives tool. To admission it, press the Windows fundamental, type Defragment, click Settings, and press Enter. Note that Windows eight automatically optimizes (defragments) your drive once per week by default. However, if y'all move a lot of files around, you may want to optimize your drives sooner.

Equally on previous versions of Windows, click the Analyze push button to meet exactly how fragmented your file systems are.

make windows 8 run faster

Control Windows Indexing

The Windows indexing service automatically scans the files on your estimator and monitors them for changes, allowing you to chop-chop search for files without waiting. Indexing uses some CPU fourth dimension (and uses more CPU fourth dimension if you oft change a lot of files) so disabling it can help you reduce CPU usage.

Bear in mind that indexing speeds up searches. If you regularly use the Files search feature on the Commencement screen or the search feature inside Windows Explorer, yous won't want to disable indexing. You should only disable indexing if you don't use the search feature.

To disable Windows Search, press Start, type services.msc, and press Enter. Scroll downwards in the list, locate the Windows Search service, right-click it and select Backdrop.

windows-search-service

Set the Startup type box to Disabled, click the Stop push to stop the service, and click OK.

windows-search-service-properties

Instead of disabling the indexing service entirely, y'all may as well want to command which folders Windows Search indexes. By default, it indexes your Users folders. if you lot have some folders full of files y'all don't want to search, especially ones that frequently change, y'all may desire to exclude these folders from existence indexed. To control these settings, press the Windows key, type Indexing, click Settings, and press Enter.

make windows 8 faster

For more information well-nigh Windows viii, be sure to download our free guide to Windows 8.

Exercise you have any other tips for improving Windows viii'south performance? Go out a comment and share them!