Here’s another tip that might help speed up your Surface
Disable Windows 10 Background Apps: What Are Background Apps?
Background apps are exactly what they sound like; they’re apps that run in the background to perform some function. Usually, that function is to check for and download new or updated data for apps such as maps or news readers.
Potential privacy issues aside, that means that these apps are using up CPU, RAM, and possibly network bandwidth while sending and receiving data. As you might expect, that means that your Surface may be slightly sluggish or drain the battery faster as a result.
Disable Windows 10 Background Apps: Disabling Them
Fortunately, turning off background apps is pretty easy, just follow these steps:
- Search for Privacy Settings and select the result for Privacy Settings (System Settings).
- Select Background Apps from the bottom of the list then turn the setting for each listed app that you want to disable to Off.
- Restart your Surface to make sure the program is no longer running.
That’s it, easy right? If you need to turn a Background App back on, follow the same steps but turn it On instead of Off.
You should be aware that turning off a background app may cause your Surface to behave slightly differently or, in some cases, prevent something from working altogether.
For example, I have Flipboard installed (it’s a news reader) and since I have the background app for it turned off, it starts up more slowly because it needs to download the news stories – it obviously can’t do it in the background. Also, since I have the Alarms and Clock background app turned off, I can’t use my Surface as an alarm clock. It simply won’t work.
So, be selective in what you turn on and off. Sometimes, the background process is worth the performance hit, especially if it’s an app that you use and depend on all the time.
If you’re still having performance issues after trying this. Take a look at our article titled Surface perform better with Windows 10.
Tim
