Computers have come a long way since the beige boxes of old, but even with speeds measured in gigahertz and gigabytes per second, they still involve some occasional waiting. If you’re tired of solving Rubik’s Cubes while you wait for your computer to boot, here are a few ways to speed up the process.
Enable Windows’ Fast Startup Mode
Windows 10 has a feature called Fast Startup that does exactly what it sounds like, and this is an obvious first stop in your quest. Essentially, this is a sort of halfway mode between hibernating and shutting down. It won’t save your open applications, like hibernation will, but the under-the-hood OS will go into hibernation mode, helping you start up with a clean state faster.
Rebooting is unaffected, though, so if you run into problems with Windows Update or getting into your BIOS, you may have to restart your PC to perform those tasks rather than shutting down.
On many machines, this may be enabled by default, but if you ever turned it off—or if for some reason it wasn’t enabled on the desktop you built yourself—you can flip the switch pretty easily.
Head to Settings > System > Power & Sleep and click the Additional Power Settings link on the right-hand side of the window. From there, click Choose What the Power Buttons Do, and you should see a checkbox next to Turn on Fast Startup in the list of options.
If it’s grayed out, you’ll need to click the Change Settings That Are Currently Unavailable link at the top of that window first, then turn on the Fast Startup feature. Be sure to click the Save Changes button when you’re done.
Adjust Your UEFI/BIOS Settings
Some computers have another Fast Boot setting in the BIOS. Unlike Windows’ Fast Startup, the Fast Boot setting (or whatever it’s called on your motherboard) bypasses some of the initial tests your computer runs when it first starts up. If you’re overclocking or otherwise need regular access to the BIOS, you might want to leave this off, but most people could benefit from turning it on if it isn’t already.
Reboot your computer, press Delete to enter the BIOS setup (or another key, if prompted), and search for any fast boot settings in the menu. Some folks also recommend changing your Boot Order Priority (making sure your hard disk is at the top of the list, rather than a DVD drive or network boot), but I’ve never found this to move the needle much.
Every motherboard is different, so poke around your UEFI/BIOS settings to see if there are any other features you can enable or disable to speed up the boot process—your motherboard or PC manual may point you in the right direction.
Cut Down on Startup Programs
The more programs you have set to launch at startup, the longer your computer will take to get into a usable state when you boot it up. Some of your startup programs may be necessary to have running all the time, but plenty probably are not.
To see what launches at startup, press Ctrl+Shift+Esc to bring up the Task Manager. Click More Details along the bottom, then head to the Startup tab. You will be presented with a list of programs that start with your computer, along with Windows’ estimate of how much it impacts your boot time.
You will also see a “Last BIOS Time” in the upper-right corner—that tells you how long your BIOS takes to hand off control to Windows, so if this number is more than a few seconds, you might want to take another look at the BIOS settings as described above. In some cases, you might just have a slow motherboard like I do.
If you see a program in this list you don’t need at startup—especially if it has a high startup impact—head into that program’s settings and uncheck the option to launch it with Windows. (Dropbox, for example, is worth the startup impact since you want it running all the time—but the Epic Games Launcher probably doesn’t need to launch with your PC.)
If you don’t see an option in that program’s startup settings, you can disable it from this Task Manager window to prevent it from launching at boot. You can also open Settings > Apps > Startup and turn off anything you don’t want to open at startup.
Open File Explorer and type %APPDATA%MicrosoftWindowsStart MenuProgramsStartup into the address bar to access your Startup folder. Any shortcuts added here will automatically launch at boot—so if there’s something here you don’t want launching, just delete it from the folder.
Finally, if you see any programs through this process that you don’t need at all, go ahead and uninstall them entirely—and it never hurts to run a malware scan while you’re at it. Bad actors running in the background can definitely slow down your boot process.
Let Windows Updates Run During Downtime
When Windows updates, it has to take time to install those updates when you shut down—and, often, when you boot back up. If you’re tired of your computer “Getting Windows Ready” after an update when you just want to play some games, you should let Windows do its thing when you aren’t using the PC. This does mean letting your machine run automatic updates, though.
To do so without interrupting your work, head to Settings > Update & Security > Windows Update and click the Change Active Hours button. Tell Windows what time you tend to use the device most—say, from 9 to 5—and it will try to run automatic updates and reboots during times when the system is idle. Read more about how this works in our guide to controlling updates in Windows 10.
Upgrade to a Solid-State Drive
More and more modern computers have ditched the spinning mechanical hard drives of yore and moved on to solid-state drives, or SSDs, which are much faster. If you’re still using one of those old disks, it’s time to upgrade. Not only will programs launch nearly instantaneously compared to your ancient hard drive, but your computer will boot much faster as well.
Just about any computer with a spinning disk should be easy to upgrade to an SSD like the Samsung 870 EVO, which you can buy as cheaply as $65 for 500GB. Look up repair instructions for your specific laptop or desktop for the full step-by-step, since it can vary from machine to machine. For most, you shouldn’t need more than a screwdriver (and occasionally a torx bit).
Just Use Sleep Mode
Here’s the thing: booting up fresh from your hard drive will always be slower than resuming from sleep. If you’re frustrated by how long it takes to start your computer, consider just putting it to sleep instead.
After all, while sleep does use a bit more power than a full shutdown, the difference is likely negligible in terms of electricity costs. Sleep can also be a bit more finicky if your computer has background programs waking it up at random times, but we have a guide to fixing that as well. Shutting down still has its place—if I’m putting my laptop in my bag for a few days, for example, I’ll probably shut it down fully—but the more often you use sleep, the less you will have to worry about that pesky startup time.
