All of you must have noticed that over the time your pc/laptop performance has degraded. you must have scratched your head and blamed it on to the hardware peripherals eg. Ram, Processor etc. Well as much as its true that these are the most crucial factors behind your system performance, there are certain other factors aswell that determines its performance like disk fragmention, registry fragmentation, number of startup items, number of background services running etc. Follow these tips to improve your system performance and get the most out of your system.

1. Remove unwanted startup items: The more startup items you keep, the longer it will take to boot. So keep only the absolute necessary items. To do that go to Start> Run or just press win key + R  and type msconfig or in case of windows vista/win 7 type here and press enter.

A dialog box appears now. click on startup tab and disable all those items that you dont need. Personally i keep just two items one is the antivirus the second one varies from time to time.

and while your at it also click on the boot tab and change the boot time from 30 sec to 3 sec

and then click on Advanced options and change number of processors from 1 to the number of cores you have.

2. Stop Unwanted Services:  Services are like the backbone of your OS. So if you maange to stop any important service, your computer might crash in an instant so before turning off any services be sure to know what is its function. To open services go to Start> Run or just press win key + R  and type services.msc or alternately for windows vista/7 users type where you typed msconfig earlier.

Here is a detailed list of services and their functions that will help you decide which ones are safe to disable.

Windows XP Services List

Windows 7 Services List

3.Turn off Visual Effects: Since the launch of windows vista there has been a lot more eye candy and this continues to carry on with its legacy Windows 7. Now you can turn them off and there will be noticeable improvement in the performance. To do that click Start Menu >  Right click “ My Computer”  >  Properties – Then click Advanced System Settings in the panel to the side > then click the advanced tab and settings under Performance

Now you can experiment with the settings and keep the one that suits you best. And while your there also click on Advanced tab just next to Visual Effects and then click on change, from there change the virtual memory to custom and make sure whatever value you set its same for both the initial and maximum size, this will prevent the boot files from getting frequently fragmented.

4. Keep as less icons possible on the desktop: Each icon you keep on your desktop puts a footprint on your memory. So keep it clean.

5.Stop the Startup Sound: Stop the startup sound and also the sounds for each activity eg. mouse click, minimize, maximize etc. To do that right click on your volume icon and select sounds

and there you will see sound scheme from there select the No sounds and also uncheck the "Play Windows Startup Sound"

6. Defrag your Drives: Degrag your drives periodically depending on your usage to keep your the performance high. I wouldnt suggest you to use the windows inbuilt defragment tool. Instead i would suggest you to use either of these Iobit Smart Defragment or Auslogics disk defrag. I used both of them and i cant really find a reason to criticise either of them.

Download Iobit Smart Defragment

Download Auslogics Disk Defrag

7. Clean up your Trash: Clean up your trash on a regular basis it will free up will clogged up space and also boost up your speed. CCleaner is what i recomend for the job.

Download CCleaner

8. Tune up your OS and Registry: Tune up your OS and registry from time to time. or else it will really bog down your performance over the time. You can use Advaced System Care (my personal favourite) or glary utilities, both will do the job.

Run the Deep Care once a week and it will do just fine.

Download Advanced System Care

Download Glary Utilities

9. Defrag your Registry: Well just like your hard disk your registry also gets fragment so defrag it from time to time to keep it compact. You can use Advanced system care only to do the job. Advanced system care includes this little tool. Open Advanced System Care > click on Tool Box > click on Optimize >Registry Defrag follow the instructions to complete the process.

10. Install only what you need: Try to install only those programs which you need. I see many people have the habbit of installing lots of softwares, softwares that they dont even know how to use. Some have the habbit of installing softwares which they might need someday. Well dont do that cause more the programs you install more it will cause fragmentation on your disk and registry aswell. For each action you perform(install/uninstall/delete etc) it makes a registry key which cause the size of the registry to grow and bog down your performance. So try not to do that. And lastly keep a good antivirus and firewall and check your pc periodically to keep it virus free. Keep your computer clean and healthy and it will definitely deliver you the high performance you need.