In this how-to, I’ll show you some quick, easy, and free ways to get more use from the memory already installed in your system. There is no escaping the rising costs of computing. Pandemics, chip shortages, and Artificial Intelligence have all played a part in raising the costs for the humble PC user. The price of your GPU has skyrocketed, and now it's memory's turn. If you don’t game, then sure, you can get by with a lower spec GPU, but every system needs RAM, and modern-day operating systems need lots of it. Or do they?
We’re not going to delve into “Linux has better memory management” territory of OS wars, but Microsoft Windows can use a sizable chunk of your RAM, so how do we reduce the hit? We need to be clever and, more importantly, frugal with how we compute. With today's incredibly inflated memory pricing, finding deals on memory is hard, so squeezing out every ounce of performance from your system is key. Let's get started!
Clean up your Startup Apps
When Windows starts up, there are a plethora of applications that automatically load. Anti-virus, Bluetooth, driver update tools, and then we have the user-installed applications that sit ready to be called (Steam, GoG Galaxy, Slack, etc.) Can we clean this up? Of course we can, and here’s how!
1. Click on the Windows logo / Start menu and search for Startup Apps, and click on Open.
(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)
2. Click on “Sort by” and select “Start-up impact”. This will sort the list (which can be huge) by the impact that the app has on your startup.
(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)
3. Turn off unnecessary applications that are causing the biggest impact. Before turning any off, check that they are not needed. If unsure, search online for the application, and if still unsure, leave the application.
(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)
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