Forget Expensive RAM Upgrades: These Windows 11 Hacks are Lightning-Fast and Free
Waiting for your Windows 11 laptop to boot shouldn’t feel like a mandatory meditation session. If you have enough time to pick up your phone and start scrolling through social media before your desktop even appears, your PC isn’t “just old.” You might have a serious bloatware problem, because you shouldn’t be fighting with your hardware for the right to start your workday.
The reason for slow launch times could be all the startup applications that start when you log in to Windows 11. These aren’t necessarily bloatware, but you probably don’t use all of them regularly. The more applications launched at startup, the more your system bogs down, even after your computer boots up.
Some apps that launch automatically at system startup include antivirus programs, Microsoft OneDrive, Slack, gaming apps, backup and sync tools, or webcam software. Some applications are designed to start immediately and others can be configured to do so.
If you want your machine to launch faster and you’re not using all of these apps, you’ll need to prevent them from starting automatically. There are three easy ways to do this: Task Manager, Settings, or File Explorer.
Use Task Manager to Restrict Startup Applications
You’ll see the same startup apps listed here as in Settings, and you can configure them to start or not start with Windows 11, just as effectively with either method.
To access Task Manager, right-click on the Start icon, usually located to the left of the search bar at the bottom of the screen. Click on the hamburger menu (three stacked lines or dots) at the top left of the Task Manager window. You can also search for Settings in the search bar.
Then click Startup apps in the menu. You will see a list of all the apps that start when you start Windows 11. Right-click any of them to enable or disable them on startup.
Simply right-click any entry in the Task Manager’s Startup Applications menu to disable it on startup.
What’s cool about Task Manager is that you can see the impact of starting each application, displayed on the far right. Startup impact can be high, medium, low, none, or unmeasured. The greater the impact, the longer it will take for Windows to fully boot.
For example, Microsoft explains that for high-impact applications, “total CPU usage takes more than 1 second or total disk usage is more than 3 megabytes.”
Disable apps on launch with Windows 11 settings
Another way to enable or disable apps on startup is to use the Settings app. Right-click on the Start iconthen find it Settings Menu or search Settings in the search bar next to the Start icon.
Click on Settingsclick on Applications in the left menu, then click To start up. You can then disable apps that you don’t want to start automatically when you log in.
The Windows 11 Settings app offers an easy way to turn apps on and off to launch them at startup.
In the apps list in Settings, you might encounter a “We couldn’t find this app” message instead of the app name. This could be because an application is on a removable drive or network drive, or the path to that application does not exist. It’s also possible that it came from an app that was uninstalled, so you can try reinstalling it. Select the icon next to the app’s power button to learn more about the missing app.
You can also use File Explorer to remove startup applications
Some apps won’t appear in Task Manager or Settings. Instead, you will need to disable them in File Explorer.
First, right-click on Start icon and select Run. When the Run dialog box appears, type shell:applications folder and select Enter. A File Explorer window will then open, displaying a list of all applications installed on the device. Keep this first window open.
Then right-click on Start icon again and select Run. In the Run dialog box, type either shell:startup Or shell:common boot and select Enter. A second File Explorer window will open, displaying a list of applications that automatically start when a user logs in.
Drag and drop the apps you want to start automatically from the first window to the second. If you want to remove apps from the Startup folder, remove the links from the second window.
How to decide whether or not to disable applications when Windows starts
You probably have apps that you don’t use, such as gaming apps, chat apps, or cloud storage syncing tools. Examples may include Microsoft Teams, Xbox and Copilot. Applications you should keep enabled are security software (such as Defender, Norton, or McAfee) as well as some major system players and components.
If you are not sure whether you want to disable a certain app, you can right-click it and select Search online to know what he does.
Generally, disabling a startup application will not harm your computer. You can disable an application and then determine whether the computer starts without problems. If you encounter a problem, try activating this application again. Using the methods above, it is just as easy to enable as disable startup apps.
Third-party startup managers
If you want to dig deeper, you might consider using a third-party startup manager. Autoruns (from Microsoft), Startup Delayer, Starter, StartupLite, WhatInStartup and other software can show you which apps start when you sign in to Windows 11, as well as browser extensions, scheduled tasks, drivers and more.
Previous versions of Windows
Enabling or disabling startup apps isn’t just a Windows 11 feature. You can use the same methods on previous versions of Windows (However Microsoft would strongly prefer you upgrade to Windows 11).
