Hello readers, I hope you are having a great week. I am making a series of steps on how to optimize your computer. This is the first step you should take in tuning up,optimization, and cleaning your computer.

One of the most common problems I see with residential computers is too many programs running in the background. These programs startup when you start your computer. They also stay running in the background until you shut your computer off. This takes away from your computer’s performance.

Here is how you stop these programs from bogging down your computers performance.

Shut off startup items.

Go to your “start button” and choose “run” (for Vista, just type into the “start search” box, as this is your run bar).

In your “Run bar“, type the word “msconfig“. Now you should see a screen that looks like the one below.


Now, at the top of the screen you will see some tabs, click on the “startup” tab.
Note: DO NOT CLICK ON ANY OTHER TABS OR CHANGE ANYTHING IN ANY OF THE OTHER TABS, EXCEPT THE STARTUP TAB. YOU COULD STOP YOUR COMPUTER FROM FUNCTIONING EVER AGAIN OR CAUSE SERIOUS PERFORMANCE ISSUES.

Now you will see all the programs that startup when your computer starts. These are the programs I told you about that stay running in the background while your computer is on. These programs can cause seriously slow behaviors from your computer. Having too many programs running in the background is always a bad thing when it comes to system performance.

The only programs you should have checked here are your anti-virus programs if any. Other programs you can start manually when you want to use them.


I know, you are probably thinking; I have 20 or more programs listed here. I have seen up to 100 programs listed here. Don’t worry, uncheck all of them, except your anti-virus program. This means 1-3 programs will have a check mark when you are through going through your list.

Note; you can put your mouse cursor over the “right line” in “command” and hold(don’t click) the “left mouse button” and while holding the left mouse button, “scroll the line to the right” so you can see the full program name.

When you are done un-checking all the programs you don’t need, click the “apply” button on the bottom. Then hit the “ok” button.

Note: Make sure you click the “apply” button before you click the “ok” button or the changes may not take effect.

Now your computer will ask if you want to restart for changes to take effect. Click the “yes” button to restart your computer.

When your computer restarts, you will notice it boots to your desktop a lot faster, because it won’t need to start a bunch of programs on startup.

If you have any questions email me at
rc@rchubb.com