TURN OFF WINDOWS 10 FEATURES SLOWING YOU DOWN

1 If you don’t need to share or receive messages, apps and other items between your PC and other devices, you can disable the new Shared Experiences feature that was added in this year’s Windows 10 Creators Update. Open the Settings app, click System, then “Shared experiences”, then flick the switch to turn it off.

2 Stop Windows 10 interrupting you with yet more notifications by switching off the Creators Update’s new Windows Welcome Experience feature. Open Settings, then click System | Notifications & actions, scroll down to the “Show me the Windows welcome experience” setting and click the switch to turn it off.

3 Apps will happily bother you with as many notifications as they can muster unless you actively stop them from heckling you. To disable notifications from apps you don’t need, open Settings, then click System | Notifications & actions and click the switch by the apps listed to turn each one off.

4 Is Windows 10 uploading updates to random people’s PCs over the internet? Open the Settings app, click Update & security and look for “Advanced options” under Windows Update. Hit “Choose how updates are delivered” and turn “Updates from more than one place” off.

5 By default, Windows 10 allows lots of apps to run in the background, but disabling these can conserve resources and battery power. Open the Settings app and click Privacy, then click “Background apps” on the left and scroll through the list of apps on the right, turning off any you don’t need.

6 Live Tiles are very pretty (and sometimes useful), but each one you have enabled uses system resources and bandwidth – and having lots of them enabled can make your Start menu feel unresponsive. Right-click the ones you don’t really need (Food & Drink?) and select More, then “Turn Live Tile off”.