This looks like a software issue. It's a pain in the ass and it's likely update and other processes and other software that comes pre-installed with the laptop. Push 'Ctrl+Alt+Esc' keys together to bring up Task Manager (or right-click your bottom-right time clock), and right-click Disable all options under the 'Startup' tab immediately. Reboot. (NO multi-select, unfortunately.) Then do the Ccleaner instructions at bottom; you can read through the custom clean advanced options inside there to see what it affects if you have the time/inclination; otherwise tick all and wipe away - it'll be almost like a new computer, with amnesia, and hopefully not too much brain damage [error boxes].
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To remove unnecessary software, goto the Control Panel (type 'control' in start menu) and sort by 'Category' (top-right) and select 'Uninstall a program' (bottom-left). Then Sort by Date (click 'Installed On' column) twice to put oldest programs at the top. Then just start removing anything you don't recognize - which should be practically everything. I would recommend taking a screenshot at this point in case you desire any future missing software, and latest versions of these will always be a good thing, even if it's just to remove the old files physical location and get a new, fresh update of any necessary 3rd-party programs. It will remember your past settings, unless you specifically tell it to remove everything during uninstallation (unlikely). In doing this, even on SSD's when the install of Windows is a couple of years old at this point, it will take ages to uninstall, just wait it'll get there, and as you go along doing this the speed of the computer sometimes increases. Weird.
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I had typed most of the below between <<< >>> originally in response to when I saw this post a few days ago, and then the power failure hit, and I forgot about it until now, when it all popped up again. Cool. Upon re-reading it, it's too complicated, and disjointed, kinda like everything here, but I believe the only way you'll get any speed out of the old laptop is to reduce the insane Windows 10 background tasks processing all this nonsense you'll never need and never use.
<<< I normally goto Add/Remove Programs in Control Panel or Right-Click Start Menu & Select "Apps and Features" ; , if its important Windows Update will refetch it for you anyway, so don't be too afraid - but anything that is not a wireless driver can be trashed (most viciously). Any software you don;t recognize or use can be trashed. Especially on laptops, for eg. if you have Lenovo laptop you will see a LOT of lenovo shit there you can remove, weird register and photo and cd/dvd and other software that definitely slows down a lot. I get Ccleaner, which I have used for 15+ years and is literally the ONLY program that you can go nuts on the registry clean and it doesn't break your PC, hooray! Also, right-click bottom-right clock and 'task manager' and 'startup' tab in the top-middle tab and right-click Disable everything there, it just prevents startup. Click Start menu and type 'optional' and click 'see optional feature history' - you can remove everything there (one at a time only, wait for uninstall to finish otherwise strange things happen because Windows is Stooopid) except notepad, paint, wordpad, media player (unless you want it all gone - its super easy to return, just click 'add feature' at top.) And, NOW click 'more windows features' and untick everything except the top 2 '.NET's. It's all legacy and advanced networking and server features that are generic-user non-functional. >>>
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And now the basic clean I do on all incoming pc's before really getting down to business:
CCLEANER TUTORIAL: First Run: Ignore Health Check; Decline All
OPTIONS -> 1) Privacy -> Untick All (2) Updates -> Untick 'Send Notifications' (3) Smart Cleaning -> Untick 'Tell me when...'
TOOLS -> Uninstall -> Click 'Publisher' Remove 'Microsoft' Rubbish - normally not un-installable :) + OLD
CUSTOM CLEAN -> 2 Tabs Windows + Applications: Tick All EXCEPT 'Internet History' & 'Saved Passwords' + 'User Assist History' [bottom] -> Pretty aggressive, but I was trained on
HijackThis select-ALL and remove, so... this at least keeps what's useful.
REGISTRY -> Tick All + Run Multiple Times Until Zero Results [this was before the above, but it needs to be done LAST]
DONE!
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SSD's: If you have an Solid State Drive, you need to run
Tweak SSD v2 immediately, select Secure Download, Install, Tick Everything, Reboot. You can uninstall it now, you'll never need to run it again unless the values are changed. Helps for lifetime + performance [supposedly]. I do it for any and all SSD's that come my way to avoid painful windows failures down the line, which then turns the drive into a portable storage only since it can't handle being read/write all the time and it's slowly dying one day suddenly...
On old windows installations with many years of updates another little free tool is called
PatchCleaner, also a run-once scenario, which scans for windows update files without linkages that you can delete; once I cleaned over 20+ GB of useless files!
Oh right, your computer might be slow because the hard drive is failing. Download
SpeedFan and install; wait for loading of sensors and click 'S.M.A.R.T.' tab and select from the dropdown your drive information; then at the bottom you will see a 'Fitness' and 'Performance' indicators. If 'Fitness' has zero blue bars/squares then it is fit only for portable storage; it has accumulated too many errors. If you run ChkDsk via the Command Prompt with the following command " chkdsk c:\ /f /r " not including quotation speech marks and select yes, yes, etc and Reboot then it will do a boot-time bad sector scan of your drive. Typically it's 99.9% in the windows or appdata, et al folders which are the most written to then first fail as the drive slowly begins to die suddenly one day. This shouldn't be the problem and everything should be fine... solid states are a little weird, but you can use
Defraggler and select 'Optimise' to zero-fill the drive which can help. On a normal 3.5" I would not defrag until doing pretty much everything in this entire missive, and it will take likely overnight each time and require multiple passes...
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Creating a new user under control panel and moving to that profile and deleting your old one MIGHT help; if TLDR occurs; but another final resort is to 'Reset this PC' found under the 'Recovery' tab of 'Update & Security' in the Windows 10 Settings (Gear Wheel Icon)... or just click Start and type 'Reset' and get to it there; much easier. Download the latest files online and fresh install, keeping programs and settings; sweet.
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*TIP* You can also Uninstall a lot of Apps simply in the Start Menu itself by right-clicking on the offending application and selecting 'Uninstall' right there! Works for Windows Apps mainly; 3rd-party opens Control Panel automatically. I'll stop now, sorry.
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