Slow boot times add up, as you waste time with each boot or restart of your PC. Extremely slow boots might even lead you to keep your computer on for weeks at a time, which comes with its own performance issues.

Thankfully, slow booting is a solvable issue. With a few toggles and adjustments, waiting for your PC to boot won’t feel like you’re waiting for a restaurant order to arrive.

We focus on Windows 11 here, since Windows 10 is now out of support. However, these tips apply to Windows 10 as well.

Toggle fast startup

One of the most problematic settings that can cause slow boot times in Windows is the fast startup option. This is enabled by default and is supposed to reduce startup time by pre-loading some boot information before your PC shuts off.

While the name sounds promising, it causes issues for a lot of people. Thus, it’s the first setting you should check when you have slow boot problems.

Fast startup only applies when you shut down your PC. Restarting your computer isn’t affected by this feature; that always does a proper, full reboot of the system.

To disable fast startup, open Windows Search with the Windows key on your keyboard and type “control” to open the Control Panel. In the resulting window, change the View by item at the top-right to Small icons (if it’s not already), then select Power Options.

Next, click Choose what the power buttons do on the left sidebar. You’ll need to provide administrator permission to change these settings by clicking the text at the top of the screen that reads Change settings that are currently unavailable.

Now, untick Turn on fast startup (recommended), followed by Save Changes, to disable this setting. If you already have fast startup disabled, try enabling it and see if that helps your PC boot quicker. Assuming you have an SSD, the feature has less impact, but it’s still worth toggling to see which works better for you.

If you don’t see fast startup here, you don’t have hibernation enabled, and thus it won’t show up. To enable hibernation, open an administrator command line by right-clicking the Start button (or hitting Win + X) and choosing Command Prompt (Admin), Windows PowerShell (Admin), or Terminal (Admin).

Type the following command to enable hibernation, then try to disable fast startup again:

powercfg /hibernate on

Adjust paging file settings

Virtual memory is a function that makes Windows dedicate part of your storage drive as pretend backup RAM—this section is called the paging file. If Windows is close to maxing out your actual RAM (because you’re running too many programs at once), it dips into virtual memory to store processes that aren’t actively in use.

Some people have found that Windows can change virtual memory settings on its own, causing boot issues. You should thus have a look at your virtual memory settings and see if you can change them to fix the slow boot problem.

To do this, type Performance into the Start menu and choose Adjust the appearance and performance of Windows. Under the Advanced tab, you’ll see the size of the paging file; click Change to edit it.

On the resulting window, the bottom values are what’s important. You’ll see a Recommended amount of memory and a Currently Allocated value. Some people with this issue find that their current allocation is far higher than the recommended number.

If yours looks off, uncheck Automatically manage paging file size for all drives to make changes. Make sure your C: drive (where you have the OS installed) is selected in the top box if you have multiple volumes.

Then choose Custom Size and set the Initial Size and Maximum Size to the recommended values that appear for your system (which may be different than in my screenshot). Reboot, and your boot times should improve.

The same reversal advice as #1 applies here—if this option is not set to Automatically manage..., try enabling this and see if that solves the issue.

Turn off Windows Subsystem for Linux

Windows 11 and 10 offer Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL), which offers a full Linux terminal and makes it easier to run Linux distros and software. While neat for developers, this is unnecessary if you don’t care about Linux. Since this feature isn’t turned on by default, it’s likely not the source of your problem if you don’t know what Bash is.

However, it’s still worth checking as a troubleshooting step. To turn off WSL, type Windows features into the Start menu to open the Turn Windows features on or off menu. Scroll down to Windows Subsystem for Linux, uncheck it, and restart.

Update your graphics drivers

Modern Windows versions are unfortunately known to mess with drivers, so you might have an incorrect or outdated driver messing with the boot process. Updating the drivers for your graphics card can sometimes fix boot issues, so you should give that a look next.

Open the Device Manager by right-clicking the Start button (or hitting Win + X) and choosing it from the list. Navigate to Display adapters to see which graphics card you’re using (either Nvidia or AMD if you have a dedicated graphics card).

Then, open or download the corresponding vendor software on your PC (the Nvidia App or AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition) to check for graphics driver updates. Alternatively, you can use the automatic driver tools from Nvidia or AMD. If you’re using Intel integrated graphics, use the Intel Driver & Support Assistant.

Install any new versions that are available, restart, and see if your boot times speed up.

It could be worth checking for other driver updates while you’re doing this, though graphics drivers are the most likely to cause slow booting. And while you’re installing updates, it’s not a bad idea to check for Windows updates at Settings > Windows Update and install anything that’s pending.

Disable unneeded startup programs

While most of the above fixes focus on slow boot times between turning your computer on and seeing the lock screen, you might also experience slowness between logging in and when Windows is usable. In this case, too many programs running at startup is a common culprit.

Upon installation, or sometimes even when updating, a lot of software sets itself to automatically run at startup. If you have dozens of apps loading as soon as you log in, this will bog your system down as they all launch at once and consume your resources. To fight back, press Ctrl + Shift + Esc to open the Task Manager, then use the Startup apps tab to disable all but the essential items.

We’ve spoken in depth about disabling Windows startup programs if you need more help; this should make a noticeable difference. If you’d like to investigate further, performing a clean boot (without any third-party programs running) can help determine if apps or Windows itself are at fault.

If you’d like to get more advanced, one of the other ways to cut your PC’s boot time is by changing BIOS settings, such as the device boot order or its own fast startup option.

Run an SFC scan

The SFC (System File Checker) command checks your Windows installation for corrupted system files and tries to replace them with working copies. It’s worth running this to troubleshoot a slow startup, as broken Windows files responsible for the booting process could be causing this.

See how to run an SFC scan in Windows to learn how it works if you’re not familiar.

Upgrade to an SSD (or new PC)

Running Windows from a hard disk drive (HDD) will result in slow performance everywhere. HDDs are great for storing lots of data for a low cost, but are too slow to use as your primary OS disk these days.

If your computer is old enough to lack an SSD, it’s time to upgrade to a modern system. In the meantime, if it’s possible on your machine, you could upgrade to an SSD, which will improve Windows’ performance considerably. This does incur an additional cost that’s likely better spent on a new system, but an SSD is a major upgrade you’ll appreciate either way.

We’ve shown how to install an SSD in a laptop; the process is much easier on a desktop.

If all else fails, perform a reset

If you’ve tried all the above solutions and still can’t speed up your boot time, it’s best to cut your losses and reinstall a fresh copy of Windows.

You have several options for resetting your PC. The built-in Refresh option can reinstall Windows without removing any of your files, but it’s still wise to back up your Windows data before doing this.

Head to Settings > System > Recovery, then choose the button by Reset this PC to start the process.

On this page, Windows 11 also offers the option to Reinstall now in the Fix problems using Windows Update box. This reinstalls your current version of Windows without affecting your data, and is a less invasive step than resetting. It’s thus worth trying first.

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Hopefully, applying one or all of these fixes worked for you. Slow startup times are a huge pain, but you have options to combat them. Don’t forget about sleep mode, either—your computer will wake from sleep faster than a full shutdown, and sleep mode is fine when you plan to use your machine before long.

Remember that if your PC is old, there’s only so much you can do on the software side to speed up boot times. A system upgrade will help greatly.