10 ways to optimise your copy of Windows 10

I have always been of the opinion that, when using any OS or program, it is always best to get to know and understand as much about it as possible. In my desire to help and encourage people to know and understand Win10, I present the following article and suggest that any Win10 user read it.

Be productive in Windows 10

Introduction

When it comes to aiding productivity Windows 10 has plenty to offer. Whether it's aero snapping your apps to corners or asking Cortana to help you out by setting reminders, it's all there to streamline your daily computing.

The best approach is to dive right into as many of the settings as you can – personalising your operating system, desktop and programs for the tasks you perform the most.

For instance, if Cortana isn't your thing, or you prefer not to search on the desktop through Bing then you can remove that part from the taskbar at the bottom of the page. Doing this will give you more screen space, as well as a tidier desktop and leave you with more space to pin programs to. But, these are just a few ways to improve your Windows experience, read on to learn more.

10 ways to optimise your copy of Windows 10 | TechRadar

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I'm still reading mixed review site comments about 10, and the review site articles are writing glowing reviews like they're getting paid.

American said:

I'm still reading mixed review site comments about 10, and the review site articles are writing glowing reviews like they're getting paid.

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shrug...

Irrelevant to my thread topic.

Mycroft said:

I have always been of the opinion that, when using any OS or program, it is always best to get to know and understand as much about it as possible. In my desire to help and encourage people to know and understand Win10, I present the following article and suggest that any Win10 user read it.

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I am waiting to get windows ten. Windows seems to be awesome every other release but always has massive bugs early on. An example is the well loved win xp,which was absolute garbage when released, but was still popular because it's predecessor win me was even bigger garbage. Win xp got better with sp1 and rock solid with sp2.

So far i have heard from too many people who upgraded of experience breaking bugs and things flat out not working, so i will wait a few months until microsoft patches up all the major early release bugs.

beerftw said:

I am waiting to get windows ten. Windows seems to be awesome every other release but always has massive bugs early on. An example is the well loved win xp,which was absolute garbage when released, but was still popular because it's predecessor win me was even bigger garbage. Win xp got better with sp1 and rock solid with sp2.

So far i have heard from too many people who upgraded of experience breaking bugs and things flat out not working, so i will wait a few months until microsoft patches up all the major early release bugs.

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I guess experiences vary. I've jumped on Win8 to Win10 as soon as they were available and haven't had a single problem that I couldn't deal with. None of the problems were due to the OS's.

But I don't blame anyone if they decide to wait.

beerftw said:

So far i have heard from too many people who upgraded of experience breaking bugs and things flat out not working, so i will wait a few months until microsoft patches up all the major early release bugs.

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99% of the time it is because people have driver issues, and that aint the OS fault but their hardware manufacture. Take Sony Viao machines.. dont upgrade them yet, since Sony has been lazy as hell (because they sold the product line to someone else) to upgrade their drivers to Windows 10. So here you would experience issues, but Sony has warned about it. But again, not the fault of Windows 10 or Microsoft. But on most other mainstream manufactures PCs, that are under 10 years old, Windows 10 should work just fine. Hell I just installed Windows 10 on a 12 year old laptop.. worked like a charm.. and actually runs better now than it did before.

There have been few experience breaking bugs, and as for things flat out not working.. mostly user fault, not the OS. There was one bug in the store but that was fixed 2 days after launch.

I bought a new laptop knowing I would hate the 8.1 that was installed on it. Knew 10 was coming out, and was hopeful. Put 10 on it and I'm very disappointed. So damn slow, and ugly. That's when I decided to put 7 on it, and was told the motherboard (BIOS?) wouldn't support it.

Great computer otherwise.

beerftw said:

I am waiting to get windows ten. Windows seems to be awesome every other release but always has massive bugs early on. An example is the well loved win xp,which was absolute garbage when released, but was still popular because it's predecessor win me was even bigger garbage. Win xp got better with sp1 and rock solid with sp2.

So far i have heard from too many people who upgraded of experience breaking bugs and things flat out not working, so i will wait a few months until microsoft patches up all the major early release bugs.

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I haven't noticed anything buggy about 10.

I just think it's a POS in being so different, and slow vs. XP and 7.

Lord of Planar said:

I bought a new laptop knowing I would hate the 8.1 that was installed on it. Knew 10 was coming out, and was hopeful. Put 10 on it and I'm very disappointed. So damn slow, and ugly. That's when I decided to put 7 on it, and was told the motherboard (BIOS?) wouldn't support it.

Great computer otherwise.

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Slow? Hmm I would do a reinstall because that does not sound right.

Windows 10 is far faster (uses much less resources) than Windows 7 and even XP.

However as with all upgrades of any operating system, it is always best to do a factory reset (iOS is especially plagued by this) of the device if you have issues.. and in Windows 10 case, it is Settings > Update & Security > Recovery > Reset this PC. I would choose not to keep files and programs.. do a full wipe. This way, any leftover drivers/programs that could cause problems are gone, and you have to reinstall the newest updated version of your programs/apps.

American said:

I'm still reading mixed review site comments about 10, and the review site articles are writing glowing reviews like they're getting paid.

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You have to remember there is a war going on in cyberspace. A trifecta of Apple vs Microsoft vs Linux. Linux and Apple fanboys tend to team up to slam anything Microsoft and the truth is always the first to go out the window. My normal way of seeing if something is good or not, is to take a reviewer that I know is utterly biased towards a product (usually Apple products) and see their comments and try to wash out the bias as much as possible. Add to that personal experience and you have the more exact review.

Now with Windows 10 these reviewers have gone out of their way often to find faults but in the end they have come with really positive reviews (relatively speaking). This started already before the OS was out and was in Beta. The whole privacy bull**** is a classic example of this war I am talking about.. much to do about nothing, but it was timed to hit exactly when the first results on how popular the OS was.. Some sites continue to push the falsehoods and bias of course, but for the most part after the debunking has been taken place, .. most sites have "forgotten" the issue. Of course the damage is done.

With Windows 8, there was a lot of bull**** going around. One of the saddest ones was on CNET (or was it ZDNET), where a reviewer was slamming Windows 8 and its search function.. or the lack of it as she claimed. Now the comments section was bloody towards the reviewer because as it turned out, she had barely used the OS to write her review on her shiny expensive Mac. The irony is now, that 6 months later, Apple released an update to OSX that copied the Windows 8 search feature... and the very same reviewer then called it revolutionary.

So back to Windows 10. Are there bugs? Yes, but not OS breaking. The biggest so far, has been a store bug that made it impossible to buy/update apps.. fixed after 2 days (so long ago).

Are there driver issues? Of course, that cant be avoided considering the amount of hardware out there.., especially if you have some obscure old tech. Having a 15+ year old printer might not be the most compatible. But as I have stated before, I have installed Windows 10 on a 10+ year old laptop and no problems at all, and no problems on newer gear either. So far 25+ installs and no problems.

Okay...cool...now that we have the "Win10 sucks" stuff out of the way, how about we limit our comments to ways to optimize the OS.

PeteEU said:

Slow? Hmm I would do a reinstall because that does not sound right.

Windows 10 is far faster (uses much less resources) than Windows 7 and even XP.

However as with all upgrades of any operating system, it is always best to do a factory reset (iOS is especially plagued by this) of the device if you have issues.. and in Windows 10 case, it is Settings > Update & Security > Recovery > Reset this PC. I would choose not to keep files and programs.. do a full wipe. This way, any leftover drivers/programs that could cause problems are gone, and you have to reinstall the newest updated version of your programs/apps.

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OK, it's not really as slow as much as the lag before it starts executing something. Probably that built in spyware processing in the background.

PeteEU said:

Are there driver issues? Of course, that cant be avoided considering the amount of hardware out there..,

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I was actually quite pleased with what they started doing in 8, or 8.1.

When I set it up, it searched my network devises, and I didn't have to install any drivers. It automatically and correctly configured itself to everything on my network.

Lord of Planar said:

OK, it's not really as slow as much as the lag before it starts executing something. Probably that built in spyware processing in the background.

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What is the technical aspects of the machine? And no, the built in spyware system does not do that. What does do it, is a failing hard drive or power saving functions.

PeteEU said:

What is the technical aspects of the machine? And no, the built in spyware system does not do that. What does do it, is a failing hard drive or power saving functions.

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I have no problems with programs. It's a MSI Leopard Pro. It has the i7-4720HQ 2.6 ghz (3.6 turbo?) with 16 GB memory and the GeForce GTZ 950M w/2GB.

The OS itself is slow compared to my 5 yr old machine running XP. 3rd party programs however, are very fast!

Office 365 is a dog. Takes longer to load. Office 2007 on the XP is fast.

It's the micro**** I have problems with. No other programs.

Now I'm not talking about slow-slow. I mean I see the difference in how this bloatware just takes longer.

Oh...

My newer computer tower is running Win 7, sporting the i7-4790 @ 3.6 ghz, 32 GB with the GT 720 w/1 GB.

The CPU is slightly faster than the one in the laptop, but Win 7 is pretty snappy. My 5 yr old computer had the 2.8 ghz Intel Pentium dual core E6300 with XP and booted twice as fast as my tower with Win 7. It's 500 GB Barracuda HD is now in my Tower as my F: drive. Just felt it was easier to access it's files as I needed them, instead of starting with old clutter.

Lord of Planar said:

I have no problems with programs. It's a MSI Leopard Pro. It has the i7-4720HQ 2.6 ghz (3.6 turbo?) with 16 GB memory and the GeForce GTZ 950M w/2GB.

The OS itself is slow compared to my 5 yr old machine running XP. 3rd party programs however, are very fast!

Office 365 is a dog. Takes longer to load. Office 2007 on the XP is fast.

It's the micro**** I have problems with. No other programs.

Now I'm not talking about slow-slow. I mean I see the difference in how this bloatware just takes longer.

Oh...

My newer computer tower is running Win 7, sporting the i7-4790 @ 3.6 ghz, 32 GB with the GT 720 w/1 GB.

The CPU is slightly faster than the one in the laptop, but Win 7 is pretty snappy. My 5 yr old computer had the 2.8 ghz Intel Pentium dual core E6300 with XP and booted twice as fast as my tower with Win 7. It's 500 GB Barracuda HD is now in my Tower as my F: drive. Just felt it was easier to access it's files as I needed them, instead of starting with old clutter.

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Interesting, I have pretty much the opposite experience. Everything is faster than Win 7 and 8. Hell my games are running great... totally new experience on Windows 10.

Here's a good video if you are interested in optimizing Win10 for gaming.

I've had win 10 the moment I could download it. I've not had one single problem that was caused by Win 10. I've had problems related to various programs, and hardware due to X company or other not having the drivers updated yet. But no problems cause by Win 10 itself.

Kal'Stang said:

I've had win 10 the moment I could download it. I've not had one single problem that was caused by Win 10. I've had problems related to various programs, and hardware due to X company or other not having the drivers updated yet. But no problems cause by Win 10 itself.

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I have nothing that classes as a problem with it. Just have to relearn many aspects.

Still, as processors get faster, it seems programmers get sloppier. It just isn't as "snappy" as XP on my older system, or even Win 7 on my tower. I hate that 1/4 second delay when going to explorer.

I have only had a program that crashes. It' s Kerbal Space Program, but then I'm exceeding what anyone else has said they can do in it. Sometimes, a craft I build will crash the game when I get over 2,200 parts. The game limits itself to 32 bit, so that seems to be why. It seems to hits 3.5 GB of memory usage at around 1,000 parts.