If you are one of those people who turns on their computer in the morning, and then heads out of your office to grab a snack, a coffee, a water, just so you can have something to do while your computer boots up, this is the post for you. Most modern computers can actually boot very quickly. The problem is we overload them with startup programs, and it can take time to load those programs. The more programs we add to the startup, the longer it will take to boot your computer. We want to minimize the startup programs to only the essentials, so you can get on with your work as quickly as possible.
Remove programs from your startup – In Windows 10 you can right click on the start button and select the Task Manager from the list that pops up. Inside the Task Manager is a tab called Startup. You can sort the items on the list by the impact they have on the startup, or alphabetically by name. As you look through the list, it should be fairly obvious which ones you can disable from starting when you boot the computer. If you are unsure what an item is or does, it’s best to ask your Managed IT Support provider if it would be ok to disable it. Most items on the list will tell you what company it comes from, such as Google or Microsoft. Look through the list and disable any that you don’t need to start right away. Many programs will still work if you manually launch the program after you complete your boot.
Unplug unnecessary peripherals – If you have a lot of things plugged into your computer when it’s booting up, like a printer, and SD card, a scanner, etc, then you can benefit from keeping the item unplugged until you actually need to use it. If you scan documents every Monday, then you can unplug it when you are done scanning and have a faster startup time the rest of the week. This is also beneficial when you have external hard drives, USB drives, or SD cards plugged in. Sometimes your computer will scan these additional disks for boot options before it finally decides to boot from the hard drive in your computer. Obviously it takes time to scan through all the peripherals and make those decisions.
Add programs to your startup – Now that you’ve removed some unnecessary items, you can get on with your day more quickly by ADDING some programs to your startup. If you load up the same programs every time you turn on your computer. It can help you get going faster if you let the computer just load those up for you. In Windows 10 there is a folder located in your main hard drive (usually called C:). The folder is called Startup. You can do a search on your C: drive for it, or you can usually find it under C: and then Program Data, then Microsoft, then Windows, then Start Menu, then Programs. There is another one located inside your user folder as well. Any program shortcut you add to this Startup folder will launch the program when you boot the computer. Saving you a few extra steps in the morning.
Add tabs to your browser – Along with starting up programs automatically, you can also launch specific websites into additional tabs when you open your web browser. If you always have to launch the same 4 websites, let the browser do the work for you. In Chrome, you would click on the 3 dots on the top right side, and select Settings. In the settings menu there is a startup section where you can choose to open a specific set of pages. The fastest way to get them all added is to do this when you have all of them open in their own tabs. You would then click “Use Current Pages” after you click “set pages” and it will load them all up for you. Other browsers have similar functionality in their settings.
Technology is there to work for us, and we have gotten to a place where we are not willing to wait for it. Clean up and add the truly helpful items to your startup. You may just find you are able to hit the ground running in the morning. when you are feeling most productive, and save the coffee run for later in the day when you need a break!