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How to optimize a windows 10 install?

3 points by muro ↗ HN
I was recently thinking about upgrading my workstation (xeon E5-1680v3, 32GB of RAM, 970 Evo), as it started to be somewhat slow under Windows 10. I'm happy with its performance under Linux, so before upgrading, I'd like to try and optimize its performance - maybe it's a configuration issue, rather than slow hardware. I searched online for how to do that, but the advice I found is strange (e.g. microsoft says to use a USB drive for ready boost). I think i only start what I need to - Adobe creative suite and a bunch of drivers are all that's listed in Startup Items. Yet when I run userbenchark, it tells me my hardware is way below median for my particular HW, e.g. my SSD is 8 percentile, so something seems very off (I have about 150GB/2TB free and dual boot from the same drive)

How can I find the cause for the slower performance? Any tools or guides I can use?

5 comments

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giantg2
You can turn the reporting/data collection off. I think the windows graphics can be turned down too, removing the transparency. Disk indexing can be either on or off depending on your needs.

That said, I haven't had issues with performance on Windows 10. I have had issues with previous versions after they've been installed for a while. I think it's more likely that you have 3rd party software slowing things down.

muro
Thanks! Is there a profiler that can tell me what is consuming resources? Task manager seems very basic for the task. I have a fast enough GPU (1070), doubt transparency is making a difference.

And it's not that the machine is slow, just that given the HW, I think it could be faster.

giantg2
I haven't used any profilers, so maybe others would know. I use task manager and then lookup what each process/task goes to.

One other thing, you can check that your drivers are up to date and that you have hardware acceleration on.

muro
Thanks, done those, checked all tasks / processes. Guess I'll leave it at that. Thank you.
giantg2
Sorry I couldn't help more.