You realize that you need to troubleshoot some software issues occurring on your computer. While it can be tricky, here’s a look at some tips to find out why your computer is slow, freezing, or experiencing other problems.
Using the MSCONFIG utility is the first step to diagnosing computer problems. It will also help bring up the performance of your machine.
- Start your computer.
- Click on the Run command line and type in “MSCONFIG.”
- Click the option labeled “Diagnostics Startup, load basic devices and services.” This will create a computer state where only required modules will be running. This action will disable networking, plug-and-play, and other functions.
- Click “Apply”, “OK” and then restart. You may receive an error witch states “access denied,” but you can ignore that and continue the restart.
- After the computer has restarted, open applications and other programs to see if you see a difference in performance and speed. If there is no noticeable difference, you’ll have to actually further isolate the problem.
To isolate additional issues follow these steps:
- Click the run command and enter “MSCONFIG” as we did above.
- This type click on the “Normal Startup” tab and then the “services” tab. Then click the entry to “Hide all Microsoft Services” and disable all of those.
- Click “Startup” and disable all of those as well.
- Restart.
- Again, after restarting, check the performance by opening and closing programs and applications.
- If your computer runs at normal speeds, you know that those items that were disabled could be the culprit. If it is not running at optimum speed, you’ll know that it was the remaining programs that are running. And this will probably be software you installed after you first bought the computer.
You will then need to examine and disable and enable each of these outside software programs.