I wish someone had told me to ditch these Windows habits years ago

Bad habits are hard to spot when they feel normal. I used Windows the same way for years without questioning any of it. But this whole time, I was tolerating annoyances like cluttered startup, slow performance, mediocre apps, and Windows’ general rigidness. The truth is, most of it could’ve been easily avoided. I just never bothered to look, and that’s entirely on me.

Ignoring bloatware

Credit: Tashreef Shareef/MUO

Every Windows PC ships with junk you never asked for. Unsurprisingly, a lot of it comes from Microsoft itself. We’re talking about Copilot, Outlook, Teams, To Do, OneNote, Solitaire Collection, and whatnot. Then there’s whatever your PC manufacturer threw in — their own tools, trial antivirus software, and random games nobody asked for. Even if you find some of these useful, it’s always better to remove the rest.

For the longest time, I ignored all of it, thinking it wouldn’t hurt. But the problem is, most of these apps are also configured to run at startup, which means they keep running in the background and using resources even when you’re not using them. My other mistake was assuming the cleanup would be painful. It isn’t. There are plenty of tools like Winhance that let you see everything installed on the system and nuke whatever you don’t want.

OS

Windows

Price model

Free

It’s a free, open-source Windows tool that helps you take full control of your PC. With just a few clicks, it declutters unnecessary apps, fine-tunes system performance, and lets you customize Windows the way you want, making your experience smoother, faster, and more personal.

Leaving startup and background apps untouched

What I wasn’t seeing was slowing me down

It’s not just the pre-installed apps that are a problem. Apps you install yourself can be just as guilty. Almost every Windows app you download will tell you it deserves to launch the moment Windows boots — Spotify, Discord, Steam, your GPU software — they all add themselves to the startup list automatically. And when that startup list gets unnecessarily long, it can increase the boot time and affect performance over time.

Background apps are the same story. Most don’t actually close when you hit the X button. They just retreat to the system tray and keep running. The fix was actually ridiculously simple. All I had to do was go to Task Manager > Startup apps and disable anything I didn’t want running automatically. Fixing background apps was even simpler. I went to Settings > Apps, tracked down the apps I didn’t want running, and revoked their background permissions.

Overlooking some of Windows’ best hidden features

Windows is better than most of us give it credit for

Windows gets a lot of criticism, but I feel some of it is undeserved. It includes several useful features that I ignored for years and did things the hard way. Virtual desktops are a great example. It’s a feature that lets you create multiple desktops for different things and switch between them with Ctrl + Win + Left/Right.

Clipboard history is another one I slept on for way too long. For anyone who works with text all day, Win + V is a lifesaver. Instead of copying and pasting items one at a time, you can just use the clipboard history to find items copied several hours ago. It even lets you pin frequently used items like email addresses and common replies, which is neat.

God Mode is something that makes managing settings less painful. Voice typing is handy when you need a break from your keyboard. Storage Sense can keep your PC from running out of storage by regularly cleaning junk files. The list goes on. Most of these features are either disabled by default or buried deep so they’re easy to miss. But now that I know what they can do, I really wish I had started using them sooner.

Not trying out third-party apps

There’s a better app for almost everything

Windows’ built-in apps are good enough to get the job done, but there are far better alternatives out there. For instance, I no longer use the Start menu because PowerToys’ Command Palette is better in every way. Beyond simply searching for apps and files, it lets me run commands, do quick calculations, and even switch between apps. Most importantly, it lets me use my default browser and search engine for web searches.

I’ve also swapped File Explorer with the Files app, which offers a dual pane view, tag support, themes, customizable keyboard shortcuts, and a lot more. Snipping Tool is another one that seemed perfect until I tried ShareX. It brings scrolling screenshots, automatic captures, better editing tools, and easy cloud uploads.

It’s not just about replacing built-in apps. There are also apps that have helped me fix various Windows annoyances. Windhawk lets me customize the taskbar however I want, LocalSend takes care of file transfers, WinToys puts all the important settings from one place, and Scolect lets me track my screen time. The point is, there are enough apps that make Windows more fun to use. I wasn’t curious enough to find them, and that was a mistake.

6/10

Operating System

Windows 11

CPU

Intel Core Ultra 7 355

GPU

Intel Arc Xe3

RAM

32GB LPDDR5X

The Lenovo Slim 7 Ultra Aura Edition is a very thin and light Windows 11 PC powered by the Intel Core 7 355 CPU and has 1TB PCIe 4.0 x4 NVMe with 32GB LPDDR5X. It weighs just 2.15lb (0.97kg) making it one of the lightest notebooks ever within this class.