A quick and easy way to speed up a slow laptop is to adjust the way Windows looks and moves.  This can quickly speed up how quickly new windows and tabs load up and generally speed up the laptop in any other aspect.

Don’t worry about doing this; you won’t lose any work or make it harder to use Windows it’ll just look a little different that’s all…

Find the system icon on the control panel - the control panel will be in the start menu (where you turn the computer off)

Find the advanced settings for your computer - this may be on a tab for earlier versions of Windows

Select the performance option

Now select "adjust for best performance" and press OK

Now you’ll notice that everything have been simplified on the look of Windows and things move around and open much faster.  If you don’t quite like the (admittedly boring) look of the new performance options then perhaps you could only speed up certain aspects with the “custom” settings.

Virus protection programs like McAfee can really slow Windows down

One thing that slows a computer considerably down is invasive software such as McAfee Virus Checker.

Having virus protection on your laptop is a good thing as it’s quite easy to accidentally download a virus and most new computers are PRE-loaded with McAfee hoping that you will pay for their software.

Now laptop makers such as ACER make a lot of money from this pre-loaded software and they have gotten in trouble for doing this in the past as it’s unfair competition some say.

I highly recommend using a FREE virus checker such as AVAST but before you install it you must remove McAfee as you can have only one antivirus program running at once.

The main reason to remove McAfee (apart from the costs!) is that this program constantly checks your hard disk for viruses making everything very, very slow.  There is no need to constantly check what’s already on your hard drive yet the program is badly designed and can take upto 90% of your processor power doing so, it’s crazy!

To remove McAfee firstly go to the control panel situated on the start menu and then goto “programs and features” or “add/remove programs” shown below:

Click "Programs and Features" or "Add/Remove Programs"

Now all you have to do is find McAfee in the list and remove the program once you have selected it, be careful you don’t remove any other programs!

Now it’s time to install a much faster and free virus protection system call AVAST which I highly recommend (AVG Free is also another good free program you could use).  Click here to setup AVAST and follow the simple instructions to install it on your computer and then you’ll quickly notice how quicker your laptop runs.

Switching the Windows Background to black has two advantages

You may have a family photo or a scenic image as your background on your Windows desktop but did you know that you laptop experience would be vastly improved if you just changed it to pure black?

Windows has to constanly remember the pixels used for you background image, placing a full size image from a digital camera makes it redraw the background image after anything passes over it which slows things down.  The less layers Windows has to cope with the faster it can run and the less precious memory it’ll need.

Having a complex image as your desktop background can slow down your reading as well as your physical computer.  The black text and image icons used for programs and folders can get lost in the image and you can find yourself frantically searching for the icon you want to click on.  The contrast of the icons against the image is to blame for this, white on black or vice versa is the highest contrast you can ever achieve.

Tip: If you are trying to find an icon in a sea of icons then keep pressing the first letter of that icon and Windows will eventually highlight it.  If you wanted to find a folder named “Holiday Snaps” the press ‘H‘ on the keyboard for example.

If you change the background to black and decide it’s not for you then it can be quickly changed back, if you MUST use an image from a digital camera as the background try making it smaller so it fits only 50% of the screen.

Changing the background is simple, start by minimalising all your windows and then right clicking on the desktop:

Right click on the desktop and chose "Properties"

Then chose background image “none”, select black and press “Apply”:

Remove any background image and change it to pure black

That’s it, now notice how smoothly you can use Windows compared to before, you could use a very dark orage or blue if the black seems a bit depressing!  Get more shades on the “other” option in the background properties.

Avoid pre-loading useless programs

Over time you’ll find that many programs that you use pre-load themselves when Windows starts so you can use them faster.  When you turn on your laptop you may have to wait a fair few minutes until you can even start surfing the internet which can be very frustrating!

Even worse is that these programs are on standby whether you want to use them or not and they take up your computer’s memory.  The computer’s memory is used as a quick swapping place for calculations, if lots of memory is free then lots of programs can use the date in their quickly and be fast running.  If the memory starts getting jammed then the hard disk is used as a substitute and it’s about ten times slower at doing the same job.

Basically you want as few programs as possible running on your laptop to make it the fastest it can be!

So how do well stop these programs pre-loading themselves?  Well it’s very hard for me to tell you as each program is different and has different ways of changing it’s settings.

Let’s take MSN Messenger (A.K.A Live Messenger) for an example, I see that messaging program load itself up on MANY laptops if the laptop user wanted it or not:

Go to "Tools" and then "Options"

Find the option to stop Messenger automatically loading up when Windows starts

Now most programs will have similar settings to MSN Messenger Live.  You usually need to go in to the “options” or “preferences” tab, find the “general” or “settings” tab and then tell that program to think twice if it’s going to jam up things when you start up Windows!

The tiny icons in the bottom right hand side of the screen show what’s running at any given time so this is your first clue of what to change the automatic settings with.

Good luck in killing each program, remember you can start up any program just as well by finding it in the “programs” section of your “Start Menu” (bottom left icon) and it may take an extra 10-20 seconds to load up than usual, that’s all!

Does your desktop look something like this? You're slowing the whole system down!

It’s easy to get a bit lazy when it comes to sorting your files out on your desktop.  Over a period of times you may have images, shortcuts, folders and web-pages scattered all over the place when you switch your computer on.

Windows Desktop is like a permanently open folder and every icon on the desktop takes up vital computer memory.  This mean that having your desktop cluttered not only makes it hard to spot a specific file it also drags the general speed down of Windows Explorer.

How do you store your files neatly and efficiently?

Simple, make lots of folders!  Make a folder for your images (or use the on in your documents folder), make a folder for your music, another one for your word documents etc. etc. and throw all the files into the right folder.

If you are very lazy then you could just throw all the icons into a folder called “junk” for example!

You may want to leave the icons for your most used programs, the dustbin and your internet browser on the desktop for ease of access.

Do you really need an analoge clock when you have a digital one in the bottom right corner? What's with the random image too?

Another thing that slows your system down are the gadgets that appear when you start Windows Vista for the first time.  You may like them and a lot of newer computers that come pre-loaded with Vista can easily cope with the demands on the system from these widgets.  If you seriously don’t need two clocks on the screen or have to be up-to the minute on the lasted news from your favorite RSS feed then get rid the whole widgets bar and quicken things up slightly:

Right click on the gadgets bar and then click "Properties"

Tell the sidebar never to appear again when you start up Windows Vista

Set your mouse pointer to move quicker

When you use your mouse do you ever bash it into your laptop trying to reach the icon you want to click on?
Even worse do you have to pick up the mouse to continue moving the pointer!?!

If you want to be quick with a computer then it’s time to take off the safety wheels and make your mouse move a lot quicker.

When you have a fast mouse you’ll be able to whiz from file to file and quickly hit what you’re after, it may only save you a few seconds at a time but in the long run you’ll be saving hours or wrist aching mouse movement.

To change your mouse settings go on the start menu (bottom left windows icon) and then go to the control panel.  In here you’ll spot the “mouse” icon, double click it to open the “mouse properties”.
N.B. You may find this is the “Hardware and Sound” section.

You can always slow down the mouse speed again if it's too fast for you to use

Displaying things like pointer trails will only be useful if you have bad eye-sight, these pointer tricks only slow down the system.  Coincidently if you do have bad eye-sight then make sure you use the zoom function on firefox and you can make the pointer bigger in the “Pointers” tab within the mouse properties.