Windows 10: The more you use Windows, the more likely you are to have a collection of tricks and tweaks for better performance. Below we will see 3 popular techniques that did not stand the test of time and should be withdrawn.
Windows has evolved, and many of the things that were once necessary to improve the performance and reliability of the Microsoft operating system are no longer needed.
Leave disk defragmentation alone
In the early years of computers, rebuilding a hard drive was one of the most important tasks in improving performance. It was something you should not forget to speed up your computer. The combination of slow storage (compared to modern technology), slow disk rotations (ditto) and dumb file systems required the regular rearrangement of the physical placement of the files on the disk, which had really noticeable results.
Over the years, two remarkable things have happened in the Windows ecosystem. System storage has become much faster, especially as SSDs are beginning to replace conventional hard drives and Microsoft engineers have greatly improved automatic data management for all types of drives.
In Windows 10, the defrag.exe micro-application is now called Defragment and optimize drives. It runs automatically, as part of a scheduled task. On conventional hard drives, Defrag does what it always did, rearranging the data so that it can be recovered more efficiently. On SSDs where traditional defragging does not work, Defrag runs the Trim command, which clears storage blocks that are no longer used and can be released for new data.
(Older people will remember the MS-DOS Defrag utility, with its raw but exciting (then) Tetris appearance with the color blocks shifting to show the defragged files.)
To check the status of all available disks, type "defrag" in the search box, and then click Defragment and Optimize Drives.
The Defragment and Optimize Drives utility runs automatically. You have nothing to do anymore.
However you can run the Defrag.exe command whenever you want to check the status of each disk and confirm that everything is working properly.
Discard any registry cleaning applications
These applications once broke, but their popularity has declined in recent years.
The idea behind registry cleaning tools is simple. It starts with the belief that the Windows registry is a mess and based on this assumption the developers of each application are convinced that cleaning up any unnecessary or unused registry entries can speed up daily activities and prevent system crashes.
The idea that software can magically detect junk and unwanted registry entries is fascinatingly strange. The idea that you can improve performance by removing one or more registry entries left behind by an uninstall is definitely absurd.
I have never seen real data showing performance improvements. On the other hand, I have seen many examples of computers destroyed by an aggressive "cleanup" that deleted useful keys from the registry.
Forget telemetry or learn to live with it
If you choose Windows 10 you should learn to live with telemetry. We hear a lot less about telemetry these days than we did a few years ago when many people reported Microsoft spying on Windows 10 computers.
Microsoft, like most software companies in our interconnected world, needs a steady stream of data to determine how well its products work. With more than 900 million computers running Windows 10, using this data in real time is essential to troubleshooting ecosystems.
All information collected as part of the telemetry process is now fully documented, and a diagnostic data viewer lets you control all data sent to Microsoft telemetry servers.
At the same time, Microsoft has simplified the settings for telemetry data. The default setting for all versions of Windows 10 is "Full", which means that the data being uploaded includes anonymous details about the use of the operating system. If you are worried about any accidental leakage of personal data, you can change your choice to "Basic" from Settings - Privacy - Feedback & Diagnosis.
If you are really concerned about privacy, choose another functional one. Windows 10 needs telemetry.
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