When you boot up Windows, how many things are started in the background? Most likely there are a lot more than you need. There is a utility included with Windows called Microsoft System Configuration to help you configure the things running at startup. It can be handy, but today I want to let you know there is a much more comprehensive tool available at everyone’s favorite cost. That’s right, no cost. You can download Autoruns from the Microsoft Web site. It works with Windows XP and higher. In all, it gives you 18 different categories of startup items that you can control.

As you trim the number of items that start automatically, you need to do so carefully. Some of them are a necessity while others are completely useless. Ideally you should turn off only 1 or 2 things at a time and then check to see if everything works correctly. After getting everything tweaked, you could see a nice increase in speed on your system.