How to Speed Up Windows Boot Time in 2026 (Real Fixes That Actually Work)

If your Windows PC takes forever to boot, you are not alone. Slow startup is one of the most common complaints from Windows 10 and Windows 11 users. The good news is that most of the causes are fixable in under 30 minutes, and you do not need to reinstall Windows or buy new hardware to feel the difference.

The fastest wins come from disabling startup programs, enabling Fast Startup, and upgrading from a spinning hard drive to an SSD if you have not already. Everything else builds on top of that foundation.

This guide walks you through every meaningful fix, ranked roughly from easiest to more advanced, with clear steps for each one.

Why Is Windows So Slow to Boot?

Before jumping into fixes, it helps to understand what is actually happening during startup. When you press the power button, Windows has to:

• Load the firmware (BIOS/UEFI)
• Initialize hardware drivers
• Start core system services
• Launch every program set to run at startup
• Render the desktop and make it interactive

Each of those steps takes time, and every piece of software that inserts itself into that chain adds delay. Over months and years, machines accumulate startup bloat without you ever consciously adding it.

Common culprits include: antivirus software scanning on launch, cloud sync tools like OneDrive or Dropbox, communication apps like Teams or Discord, Adobe updaters, manufacturer bloatware, and outdated or corrupt drivers.

The Fastest Fixes First

Enable Fast Startup

Fast Startup is a Windows feature that saves a compressed snapshot of your system state to disk when you shut down, so the next boot loads that snapshot instead of initializing everything from scratch. It is essentially a hybrid between a cold boot and a resume from hibernate.

How to enable it:

1. Open Control Panel and go to Power Options
2. Click Choose what the power buttons do on the left sidebar
3. Click Change settings that are currently unavailable
4. Check the box next to Turn on fast startup (recommended)
5. Click Save changes

This single change can cut boot time by 20 to 40 percent on most systems. It does have one quirk: a “shut down” with Fast Startup enabled is not a true cold reboot. If you are installing drivers or troubleshooting, use Restart instead of Shut Down to force a full reboot.

Disable Startup Programs

This is where most of the real-world drag comes from. Many apps add themselves to startup without asking, and after a few years your list can be enormous.

How to manage startup apps in Windows 11/10:

1. Right-click the taskbar and open Task Manager
2. Click the Startup apps tab (or Startup in Windows 10)
3. You will see a list of programs with a Startup impact column rated Low, Medium, or High
4. Right-click anything you do not need immediately at boot and choose Disable

Safe to disable for most users:

App	Safe to Disable?	Notes
Spotify	Yes	Opens when you launch it manually
Discord	Yes	Launches fine on demand
Steam	Yes	Games still work, Steam opens when needed
OneDrive	Usually	Disable if you do not rely on cloud sync
Skype	Yes	Mostly replaced by Teams anyway
Adobe Updater	Yes	Update manually when needed
Teams (personal)	Depends	Disable if you are not in constant meetings
Your antivirus	No	Security software should run at startup
GPU drivers (NVIDIA/AMD)	No	These affect performance and display output

Do not bulk-disable everything. Be deliberate. Disabling your antivirus or GPU control software creates real problems.

Switch to an SSD (the Biggest Hardware Upgrade)

If your PC still uses a traditional spinning hard drive (HDD), no software tweak will give you the improvement that an SSD will. A mechanical hard drive can deliver boot times of 60 to 120 seconds. A modern SATA SSD gets you to 15 to 25 seconds. An NVMe M.2 SSD can get you under 10 seconds.

How to check what storage you have:

1. Press Windows + R, type msinfo32, press Enter
2. In the left panel, expand Components > Storage > Disks
3. Look at the Media Type field

If it says “Fixed hard disk” and the model number includes “HDD”, you are on spinning rust. If you see a Samsung 870, WD Blue SSD, or similar, you already have an SSD.

Cloning your existing drive to an SSD is easier than most people expect. Tools like Macrium Reflect Free can clone a drive in under an hour. You do not lose any data or need to reinstall Windows.

For most people, this is the single best investment for boot speed, and good 1TB SSDs are now available for under $60.

Adjust BIOS/UEFI Boot Order and Settings

Your system spends time before Windows even starts, searching for boot devices. A few BIOS tweaks can trim several seconds off that early phase.

How to access BIOS: Restart your PC and press the key shown on your manufacturer’s splash screen. It is usually F2, F12, Delete, or Esc. It varies by brand.

Changes that help:

• Set your SSD or main drive as the first boot device. If your BIOS checks a DVD drive or USB ports first, that adds delay every time.
• Disable unused boot devices in the boot order list so the BIOS does not scan them.
• Enable Fast Boot in BIOS if available (different from Windows Fast Startup). This skips some hardware checks.
• Disable Secure Boot only if necessary. Do not disable this casually; it is a security feature. Only touch it if you have a specific reason.

These changes collectively can save 3 to 8 seconds on pre-Windows startup time.

Clean Up Startup Services

Beyond apps in Task Manager, Windows also runs dozens of background services at startup. Some are essential. Others are installed by third-party software and add overhead.

How to manage services:

1. Press Windows + R, type msconfig, press Enter
2. Click the Services tab
3. Check Hide all Microsoft services at the bottom (important, do not touch those)
4. Review what remains; these are all third-party services
5. Uncheck anything you recognize as unnecessary

Alternatively, use the Services panel directly:

1. Press Windows + R, type services.msc, press Enter
2. Look for services with Startup Type: Automatic that you do not need
3. Right-click > Properties > change to Manual or Disabled

Services commonly safe to set to Manual:

• Fax
• Print Spooler (if you do not print)
• Remote Registry
• Windows Search (if you rarely use the search bar)
• Bluetooth Support Service (if you do not use Bluetooth)

Be careful here. If in doubt, set to Manual rather than Disabled. Manual means Windows starts it only when needed; Disabled means it never starts.

Run a Disk Cleanup and Check for Drive Health

Fragmented data and nearly-full drives both slow down Windows. While SSDs do not need defragmentation, HDDs do, and even SSDs benefit from having free space (Windows needs it for swap files and system operations).

Disk Cleanup:

1. Press Windows + S, search for Disk Cleanup
2. Select your C: drive
3. Click Clean up system files for a deeper scan
4. Check: Windows Update Cleanup, Temporary Internet Files, Recycle Bin, Temporary Files
5. Click OK and confirm

For a more thorough cleanup, a tool like BleachBit handles residual junk that the built-in tool misses.

Check SSD/HDD health:

A failing drive causes all sorts of slowdowns. Use CrystalDiskInfo (free) to check your drive health status. If it shows “Caution” or “Bad,” prioritize backing up your data immediately.

Update or Roll Back Drivers

Outdated or corrupted drivers, especially for chipsets, storage controllers, and GPUs, can cause significant boot delays.

To check driver status:

1. Right-click Start and open Device Manager
2. Look for any devices with a yellow warning triangle
3. Right-click those devices and select Update driver

For GPU drivers, go directly to the manufacturer’s website:

• NVIDIA: nvidia.com/drivers
• AMD: amd.com/support

Avoid using third-party “driver updater” software. Many of these are scareware that install bloat or show false warnings to push paid upgrades.

If a recent driver update caused new slowness, you can roll it back. In Device Manager, right-click the device, open Properties, go to the Driver tab, and click Roll Back Driver if the option is available.

Adjust Your Power Plan

If your PC is set to a power-saving plan, it may deliberately limit CPU performance during startup, causing slower initialization.

1. Open Control Panel > Power Options
2. Select Balanced or High Performance
3. On laptops, Balanced is reasonable; on desktops, High Performance is fine

On Windows 11, you can also access this via Settings > System > Power & battery > Power mode and set it to Best performance.

Check for Malware

Malware often installs itself as a startup process and consumes resources immediately. If your boot suddenly got slower without any obvious cause, a malware scan is worth doing before anything else.

Use Windows Security (built-in and free):

1. Open Windows Security from the Start menu
2. Go to Virus & threat protection
3. Run a Full scan

For a second opinion, Malwarebytes Free is a solid tool for catching things Windows Security misses.

Optimize Virtual Memory Settings

Windows uses a page file on disk as overflow memory when RAM is full. By default, Windows manages this automatically, which is usually fine. But on systems with low RAM (4GB or less), tweaking it can help.

If you have 16GB of RAM or more, the page file rarely matters for boot speed. On systems with less RAM:

1. Search for Adjust the appearance and performance of Windows
2. Click the Advanced tab, then Change under Virtual Memory
3. Uncheck Automatically manage paging file size
4. Set a custom size: initial size = 1.5x your RAM in MB, maximum = 3x your RAM
5. Click Set, then OK, then restart

Consider a Clean Boot to Diagnose Deeper Problems

If you have tried everything and boot is still slow, a clean boot lets you isolate what is causing it. A clean boot starts Windows with only Microsoft services and drivers, disabling everything else.

1. Press Windows + R, type msconfig, press Enter
2. On the General tab, select Selective startup and uncheck Load startup items
3. Go to the Services tab, check Hide all Microsoft services, then click Disable all
4. Restart and test boot time

If boot is now fast, the problem is a third-party service or program. Re-enable them in batches to find the offender.

Measuring Your Boot Time (So You Know What Is Working)

Before and after making changes, it helps to have actual numbers. Windows records boot time in the Event Viewer.

1. Press Windows + R, type eventvwr.msc, press Enter
2. Navigate to Applications and Services Logs > Microsoft > Windows > Diagnostics-Performance > Operational
3. Look for Event ID 100 which logs boot time in milliseconds

You can also use the Task Manager. After logging in, open Task Manager and look at the Startup apps tab. It shows the last BIOS time (pre-Windows startup) in the top right corner.

What Each Fix Does

Fix	Difficulty	Expected Impact	Best For
Enable Fast Startup	Easy	High	All users
Disable startup programs	Easy	High	All users
SSD upgrade	Medium	Very High	HDD users
BIOS boot order	Medium	Low to Medium	All users
Disable startup services	Medium	Medium	Bloated installs
Disk cleanup	Easy	Low to Medium	Full or cluttered drives
Driver updates	Medium	Low to Medium	Systems with old drivers
Power plan	Easy	Low to Medium	Power-saving mode users
Malware scan	Easy	High (if infected)	Sudden slowdowns
Virtual memory	Medium	Low to Medium	Low RAM systems
Clean boot	Advanced	Diagnostic	Unresolved issues

Conclusion

The fastest path to a quicker Windows boot in 2026 is this: enable Fast Startup, cut down startup programs, and if you are still on an HDD, switch to an SSD. Those three steps alone transform most slow machines. Everything else is refinement.

Work through the list methodically. Measure before and after. Not every fix applies to every machine, so focus on what actually moves the number for your specific system.

A Windows PC that boots in under 15 seconds is completely achievable without spending much money or technical effort. It mostly takes a bit of time to clean up what has accumulated.