Personally, I use Windows 10 solely for gaming purposes on my desktop computer. I’m not hating on it like previous versions as I do think that this is finally a good and usable operating systems. However, Linux has been one way back in 99′ and I’m using it as my primary OS because it’s fast, stable and provides a more uniform experience. When I want to play, I still boot up Windows as all my games are there and they (usually) don’t need trickery to run. Having good performance is another question though…
The more software you install, the slower Windows gets. This is the basic truth eversince Windows 95. Programs tend to add their code to things that automatically loaded when windows boots and this on top of lengthening the bootup process occupies memory too that games need a lot of.
When you play, you are definitely using a single program (and nowadays the obligatory game launcher). You don’t need Dropbox or Viber to run in the background and you definitely don’t need all 6 game launchers installed running at the same time. You might need Discord for voice chat with your teammates, and you should not turn off your antivirus anytime at all, but you should always try to decrease the number of running programs.
CCleaner to the rescue
CCleaner provides a lot of useful tools to keep your computer in tip-top shape. The ones I really need are included in the free version, so along with Windows Defender (already included with Windows) to protect against viruses and malware and PatchMyPC to automatically upgrade my software, I don’t use any other tools for PC health management.
I’m still using CClenaer to uninstall software as it provides a way better interface than windows to do such a thing, but I didn’t use the registry fix or cleaning features for a long time as Windows 10 just doesn’t seem to be as fragile as previous iterations.
The main thing I use to speed up boot time and gaming is the Tools > Startup function in CCleaner where I can disable all the auto starting programs that I use occasionally, but do not need in system memory all the time.
As you can see on the screenshot, there are quite many programs that want to be launched. The only thing I really need is Windows Defender which is the last row of the table. Do not turn that one off, or if you are using another antivirus program be sure not to disable it.
As you can see I disabled everything except the last line as I think I’m able to decide what and when to launch myself. I even disabled dropbox as it slows down logging in and I don’t really use Windows for anything else but gaming. Maybe you shouldn’t turn it off if Windows is your main OS.