As you use your computer more and more over time, you've probably noticed it tends to get slower. The build-up of installed apps and saved files can take a toll on the performance of your machine over time. But it's not really just about what's installed on your system, it's about what's running on it, and the biggest culprit behind this worsening performance is very often ignored: startup tasks.

This is something I've been very careful about for a long time now on Windows 11. As you install more programs, a lot of them tend to create tasks that run automatically when you start up your PC, and this is one of the biggest reasons your computer will start to feel slow. Not only do these tasks make your PC take longer to boot, but since they can be running in the background after that, these tasks can be using up resources the entire time you're using your PC. That's why it's important to stay on top of it, and I always keep an eye on my PC's startup tasks — and I don't need any third-party tools for it, either.

Managing startup tasks in Task Manager

Starting with the big ones

Most people know Task Manager as the way to look at their running apps and terminating the ones that may be frozen or unresponsive, but there's a much more interesting use to it, too. In the Startup tab (represented by a speedometer-like icon), you can manage the programs that start with your PC and potentially take up resources. You can see above what my startup tasks look like before disabling any of the things I don't need.

As you can tell, this is a fairly extreme case, since this is a laptop where I test a lot of software, but you can see there's a very long list of programs starting with the computer here. All of these tasks are trying to run as soon as you sign into your PC, which means it takes a while for everything to get going, and it's going to slow down your PC while you try to use it for things that actually matter. Plus, the screen gets filled with all kinds of unnecessary app windows I just don't need to use.

You can go through all of these tasks and see which ones you want to be running as soon as your PC starts up. Some of them may be important, so it's up to you to make the adjustments that work for you. To disable a startup entry, you just click the entry, and then click Disable near the top of the Task Manager window. Do this for any app you don't need, and then you can restart your PC to see the difference. Here's how my Task Manager looks after disabling the things I don't need at startup:

There were quite a lot of tasks here I didn't need running at startup, so over half my list is disabled, and it might be similar for you. This won't break anything in your PC, either; you're not terminating any apps or deleting anything — just preventing some things from automatically launching. Some of these features may be useful, but if something stops working as intended, you can always go back and re-enable that startup task, or just launch it manually when you need it.

Check Task Scheduler, too

An often forgotten part

If you've disabled everything you could in Task Manager, you might notice that some programs and tasks will still run when you first sign in your PC. Windows has more than one mechanism for registering tasks that launch on startup, so another place you need to check is Task Scheduler.

This is a tool that's used — as the name indicates — to schedule tasks based on specific triggers, and many of these tasks are created by programs you install and set to run whenever you log onto your PC. Navigating Task Scheduler is a bit more complicated, as there are numerous tasks across different folders, and many of them might be important, so you have to be extra careful in choosing the ones you truly want to disable. For the most part, just staying away from Windows folder should be enough to ensure you don't break anything.

I recommend looking for tasks that specifically have a trigger at logon, or those that have multiple triggers defined. For the latter, you can check the task details to see if one of them is set to a logon event. If you're not sure what you can disable, you can always look up the name of a task before disabling it. For tasks with multiple triggers, you can also just edit the task to disable the logon trigger and leave the remaining ones alone.

Many of the tasks that only appear in Task Scheduler are more so things that run in the background, so you might not even suspect anything is there until you check. It's a good idea to take a look, even if you think your PC is fine already. For example, I found some tasks here that came from programs I no longer have installed, so I simply deleted those.

Does it make a difference?

Yes, absolutely

Of course, none of this truly matters if you don't see a tangible difference in performance and startup times, so you may be wondering how much of a difference this makes. So, I tried measuring it.

Before I disabled all the startup tasks, the computer took just under 25 seconds from pressing the power button to getting to the login screen. Then, it took about 14 and a half seconds from entering my PIN to displaying the desktop, but most things weren't loaded yet. In fact, I had to wait an extra 2 minutes and 3 seconds for all the startup tasks to launch, resulting in multiple windows being open and 20 icons being shown on the system tray.

Because of all the tasks that were starting, some of the ones that mattered the most to me took the longest to launch, too. TranslucentTB, for example, customized my taskbar to a different color and style, and it took almost a minute for it to kick in during this test. Plus, apps like Flow Launcher and Tailscale also took a long time to launch.

After turning the unnecessary tasks off, it was a night-and-day difference. The time to take to the login screen was mostly unchanged, but what happened after that was a radical improvement. After entering my PIN, it took under one second for the desktop to be displayed. And as for the rest of the startup tasks, I had to wait about 30 seconds until the system tray was fully populated with the apps I had left enabled. In just a few seconds, TraslucentTB had already kicked in and customized my taskbar, and Flow Launcher was ready to go, too.

In total, going from the lock screen to a fully loaded desktop and apps before disabling startup tasks took 2 minutes and 18 seconds, and that was shaved down to a mere 31 seconds after disabling the things I didn't need. That's more than a four times increase in boot speed. These things matter.

You can speed up your PC a lot

There are many things you can do to speed up your computer, and truth be told, you should be keeping an eye on the apps you have installed and files you have downloaded. But even if you don't want to delete anything, simply disabling some startup tasks you don't need can make a huge difference. As you can see from my example, your computer can start a whole lot faster, and you can start working more quickly.

How drastic the difference is really depends on how many programs you have installed and how many things you disable, but at worst, you have nothing to lose, and at best, you could get a serious speed boost. If nothing else, it's worth trying.