You’ve done everything you can think of to speed up your computer. You’ve defragmented your hard drive. You’ve scanned for viruses and malware, and removed every bit of questionable code you could find. You’ve removed start-up items, reconfigured your desktop to the bare bones, and gotten rid of every memory-wasting utility you set eyes upon. And your computer is still slow. What else can you do to speed things up?

You Can Still Squeeze Efficiency Out Of Your PC

You can still find ways to speed up your computer. Doing all of the above things are great. Cumulatively, they’ll have the effect you’re looking for. There are still other things you can do to get better performance out of your computer.
For starters, take a good look at your font collection. If you’re like most people, you don’t look too carefully at your fonts. Applications tend to come with fonts. The more applications you install, the more fonts you collect. Guess what. Fonts take up memory. And guess what else. Fonts load at boot time. If you want to get better performance from your computer and you can afford to cut a few fonts, do so.
If you’re like most users, you normally use a certain, relatively small selection of fonts. This is especially true if you use your computer for business or schoolwork. All of the goofy little fonts you collect over time don’t get used by you and don’t speed up your computer at all.
Keep the fonts that came with the OS – you know, Arial, Times New Roman, Verdana, etc. Keep the symbol fonts and any special fonts you regularly use. Look carefully at the extra fonts that cropped up at some point – those you don’t recognize and aren’t really sure where they came from. Chances are good that you don’t use them. Never have, never will. Remove those you don’t use. You can always put them back on if you need them. You’re probably also developing a great collection of foreign language fonts. If you don’t speak the language, get rid of those, too.
To remove a font, go to Start > Run. Enter %windir%\fonts in the run box. Select the fonts you want to remove. You can remove multiple fonts by holding down the CTRL key while selecting the fonts to be removed. Choose Delete from the File menu and click Yes when you’re prompted to confirm the removal.
If you’re feeling squeamish about removing the font, you can simply move it out of the Windows/Fonts directory. That will enable the font itself to remain on your computer, but it won’t load when the computer boots up.

Photo Credit: clared23, via Flickr

Tags: removing Windows fonts, slow computer, speed up computer