These files are images and graphics that take up even more memory that can be used for other important applications. But files in separate folders and creating shortcuts on the desktop are often used not only to free up space but also to reduce the time and number of steps on the hard drive. Defragment Your Hard Drive The more operations and tasks you do with your PC, the more your hard drive becomes fragmented with many files broken and scattered in different locations. This takes Windows longer to access information from different locations, slowing down operations and program execution. Thus hard drive defragmentation is necessary to assemble the damaged files and make them easier to find. Go to My Computer>Properties>Tools and click Defragment Now. You can also use free defragmentation software available in the market. Stop unnecessary startups The more third-party programs try to load at startup, the longer it will take for your computer to boot. Most of these programs don't need to run at startup, and many do so in the background without your knowledge even if they don't need to