About a month following the release of Windows 10 customers started pouring into my shops asking us to bring their Microsoft computers back to life. Aside from viruses, which are more common than you might think, Windows 10 is plagued by features that Microsoft leaves on by default. Following are three things you can do to speed up your Windows 10 computer.

The computer I’m working on tonight is an earlier release of 10 so your options may be the same, but more than likely will be different. You’ll see why I chose to use an older version when you get to the bottom of my simple tutorial.

Luckily everything you need for this tutorial is located in the settings menu. Click the START button then click on the gear. Once the blue screen opens you’ll want to click on the PRIVACY icon (or the lock).

This is a pretty important step because what you turn off here not only changes the speed of the computer, but these options affect your privacy.

Each category is fairly similar. I turn off each of the sliders which changes the color from blue to a white background. Microsoft doesn’t need to know your location and applications certainly don’t need to have access to your camera.

The two options which you should pay particular attention are FEEDBACK and BACKGROUND APPS. Your FEEDBACK settings should be set to never and basic. All BACKGROUND APPS should be turned off so the sliders are to the left.

We discovered a power glitch with Windows 10 early on when customers started complaining about speed issues. Clicking on the SYSTEM menu will display a bunch of options. The important one is the POWER & SLEEP submenu. Next, click the blue link that says Additional Power Settings.

To get to the next step I usually click on the link that says choose what the power buttons do. Once you’re on that screen you’ll see a few options grayed out at the bottom of the window. Clicking on the link that says change settings that are currently unavailable allows the grayed options to be modified. Uncheck Turn on Fast Startup and return to the main menu.

Windows 10 has a somewhat annoying feature that installs updates when the computer isn’t being used. Customers with fast computers tend to turn off their machines when they’re not being used which means updates sometimes don’t get installed.

It’s important to force Windows to perform updates periodically. To do this click on the UPDATE & SECURITY icon then Check for Updates. Your computer may update and it may not.

Good luck and hopefully your laptop or computer will benefit from performing these three easy steps.

(Jeromy Patriquin is the President of Laptop & Computer Repair, Inc. www.LocalComputerWiz.com.)