Ultimate Tips to Make Windows 8 Faster than Ever Applies to Windows 8.1 also

Slower Windows are the real pain while you try to finish important work, it just starts lagging too much while you work on the Windows 8 or 8.1. There may be tons of reason why does your Windows act slower like a sloth.

You can speed up Windows 8.1 or Windows 8 to achieve the optimal speed, in this detailed article you will find all the necessary trick & tweaks to make computer faster again.

There may be different configurations, installed software or different editions of Windows 8.1/8 like Window 8 Home, ultimate, pro, enterprise, etc. But these tips and tweaks work on every edition of Windows 8/8.1.

You may have come across different articles or videos on YouTue to make windows 8.1/8 faster but not every tip work on your computer. Even if you have used different tools which claim to optimize your computer for better speed but these tools can do the limited improvement.

Don’t blindly trust these cleaning or optimization tools, they just want to sell you their products which does little work. Instead, you can manually improve computer performance to it’s best.

Apart from the manual process, I will show you some best and free tools to use in order to speed up your computer.

Why Does Windows 8.1/8 Get Slow?

Every Windows computer gets slow and sluggish by the time we use it since we install a number of programs and store many files into the computer, and the system starts using more resources and different services run in the background which also consumes unnecessary resources.

Windows 8 & 8.1  uses high system resources than previous versions of windows like XP and Windows 7 Since Windows 8 offers more functionality, better user interface and system security it does consume more RAM and Processor to make any program run smooth.

Whatever Microsoft tries to make Windows 8 faster but it gets slower and slower by the time we use it.

There are the following reasons why you face slower Windows.

1. Windows acquires Junk files rapidly.
2. Inbuilt windows look and appearance features.
3. Performance-based on power consumption.
4. Default folder and search options.
5. Unnecessary system services.
6. Lots of startup programs.
7. Fragmented Files.
8. Unnecessary Programs and software.
9. Programs that use high CPU, RAM & Graphics
10. Registry problem and errors.
11. Malware, adware, and Viruses into Computer.

So above are the possible cause which slows down a Windows 8, 8.1 computer, now let’s find the ways to fix these problems and make windows 8 faster.

How to Make Windows 8 Faster than Ever applies to 8.1 also

Now to overcome the Slow Windows 8 Problem here is the ultimate tips which will surely make windows 8 faster than ever. Since window 8.1 is not much different than windows 8 so this tutorial also works on windows 8.1 without any problem.

By any chance, if your computer is too slow to perform any task even these optimizations, try to boot your Windows 8 computer in safe mode.

1. Disk Cleanup And Junk Removal

Open My Computer and Right Click on C drive and go to properties from there click on Disk Cleanup.

it may take time depending on the amount of junk files into your computer, once the scan is complete select every option and click on OK to delete them.

After this download and install CCleaner and run it once, it will find the junk from other areas of your computer and delete them within a few clicks.

2. Customize Windows appearance and Disable Animations

Windows default shadows and Animation reduces system performance, by choosing the appropriate look and feel you can drastically increase windows 8 performance, follow these steps:-

1. Press Win + R key together and you will get the RUN dialog box.
2. Type sysdm.cpl and hit OK.
3. You’ll get System Properties dialog Box now click on Advanced tab and again Click on Settings under Performance option.
4. Now Uncheck Following Options –
   •  Animate controls and elements inside windows
   • Animate Windows when minimizing and maximizing
   • Animation in the Taskbar
   • Fade or slide menus into view
   • Fade or slide ToolTips into view
   • Fade out menu items after clicking
   • Save taskbar thumbnail previews
   • Show shadows under mouse pointer
   • Show shadows under windows
   • Show translucent selection rectangle
   • Slide open combo boxes
   • Smooth -scroll list boxes

Make it looks like the image on the right-hand side, after unchecking these options click on Apply then OK. These tips have a major contribution to make windows 8 faster.

3. Adjust Power Options

Windows 8 can be optimized by adjusting the power options, if you don’t care of little extra power consumption by your laptop or desktop then adjust it for higher Performance, to do so –

Open control panel and go to Power options from there select High Performance.

4. Change Folder and Search Options

By default Windows 8, 8.1 have the folder and search options which you may not be using, disabling such option improves windows performance up to an optimum level. Follow these steps – 

1. Open File Explorer and Go to View option, from there click on Options.
2. Now Click on Change folder and search options and you will get Folder Options dialog box.
3. Click on View Tab there and uncheck the following options –
   1. Display file size information in folder tips
   2. Hide empty drives in the Computer folder
   3. Hide extensions for known file types
   4. Show encrypted or compressed NTFS files in color
   5. Show pop-up description for folder and desktop items.

After un-checking the unnecessary options hit Apply and OK.

5. Stop Unnecessary Windows Services to Start Automatically

Windows 8 & 8.1 has many such services which start automatically even you don’t need them to run, they keep running in the background which consumes system resources and makes your computer slow, so it is always a good practice to strict such services to start automatically, below are the steps to do this –

1. Press Win +R key together to open Run dialog box.
2. Type services.msc and hit OK, and you will get the list of services.
3. Now mark these services to run Manually by Right Click on service name > Properties > Startup Type and Select Manual and Hit Apply and OK, Services to be marked as Manual are –
   1. Diagnostic Policy Service
   2. Diagnostic Tracking Service
   3. Offline Files
   4. Performance Logs and Alerts
   5. Print Spooler (If you don’t use printer otherwise leave it Automatic)
   6. Program Compatibility Assistance
   7. Secondary Logon
   8. Windows Error Reporting Service
   9. Windows Image Acquisition.

limiting above windows services results in faster access to the required windows services.

6. Disable Unnecessary Startup Programs

When you boot into the computer there are many programs which start itself with windows startup and keeps running until you manually close them, it is advised to disable startup programs in order to fast boot up of Windows.

1. Press clrl+shift+esc keys together and it will open task manager, now go to Startup tab.
2. Find the Unnecessary Programs and Right Click > Disable you can disable all startup programs.

7. Disable Windows default Sound Notifications

Windows plays different sound notifications for various system events like the error, media connect or disconnect, and during various prompt, these sounds also cause slow system performance, if you don’t care of such notification sounds you can disable them all.

1. Open Control Panel by Pressing Win+X key and Click on Control Panel.
2. Go to Sound Options and it’ll open Sound dialog box, now click on Sounds tab.
3. Under the Sound Scheme, select No Sounds.

Now hit Apply and OK.

Don’t Like Reading? Watch this Video Tutorial

8. Optimizing Registry and Tweaks.

Whenever you Uninstall a Program it gets deleted from Program Files and many other directories, but few registry keys remains as it is into the Registry of Windows computer.

You can find and delete such Registry entries using CCleaner, just open CCleaner go to Registry tab and scan for issues, it’ll find all the unused registry keys now select all and click on Fix select issue in order to delete them.

You can enable, disable and optimize various windows feature by applying few registry tweaks, like

Auto kill not responding tasks, Faster access to Start Menu, Wait to kill a program and more registry tweaks, if you guys don’t want to play with registry then just download the file below and open it, it will ask for confirmation then allow it.

Download

After applying registry tweaks, you will notice an increase in windows 8, 8.1 performance.

9. Disk Defragmentation

Whenever you use a program it asks for the block of  memory from computer, and computer allocates memory blocks in chunks, after closing the program these blocks get free and available for another program, the free memory blocks are long and contiguous, by the time and with use these long and contiguous memory become fragmented into smaller and smaller piece, that makes such memory blocks unavailable for further program execution.

Defragmentation is a process of cleaning such fragmented memory block, and it is easy to do since windows provide an inbuilt tool, to perform defragmentation –

1. Open Computer and Right click on C drive then go to Properties.
2. Go to Tool tab and click on Optimize.
3. A new window will pop up, select C drive and click on Optimize.

The defragmentation process may take time depending on the number of fragmented memory blocks.

Alternatively, you can perform this task using a more advanced tool by iobit called Smart Defrag.

10. RAM Upgrade

If your Windows 8.1 PC/Laptop is still slow even after performing the above steps, check the RAM of your computer, if it is lower than-

4 GB (If you do normal computing like web browsing, movies, music etc) then consider upgrading your RAM to at least 4GB.

8 GB (If you do software work like web designing, photoshop, gaming) then consider upgrading your RAM to at least 8 GB.

Check with your computer manufacturer than how much RAM your PC can support and whether it is DDR2 RAM, DDR3 RAM or DDR4 RAM.

Check your System Information and find what kind of RAM your PC/Laptop needs.

11. Few More Useful Tips to Speed Up Windows 8.1/8

1. Directly land to the desktop whenever start the windows. Right Click on Taskbar > Properties > Navigation tab and Check the option When I sign in or close all the apps on a screen, go to the desktop instead of Start.
2. Regularly update your windows to install the latest security and performance features.
3. Uninstall the programs you don’t use.
4. Use a steady image instead of a slide as desktop background.
5. Update windows drivers to the latest version.
6. Install a good Antivirus program from here  Best Free Antivirus for Windows 7, 8.1 & 10.

So all points listed above are the ultimate tips to make Windows 8 faster than ever, which also applies to Windows 8.1, after performing all the steps you have to restart the computer, once restarted you will get blazing speed of your Windows 8 computer, if your computer gives continuous errors, too laggy, can’t install a program, viruses, trojans, and annoys you lot then try to Reinstall Windows 8.

Also Read-

•  How to Fix Slow Running Windows 10 , 200% Faster PC
• 10 Best Hidden Features of Windows 10
• How to Reset Windows 8 Password Easily if Forgot it

Sandeep Singh

A tech enthusiast who loves to explore new technologies and mess with software & hardware just to see what could go wrong and then try to fix it.