Manuviraj is a tech enthusiast who covers Windows, macOS, and retrocomputing. Drawn to both the logic and the creativity of technology, he’s especially interested in how people interact with tech and the internet every day.
He holds an English Literature degree. His fascination with tech grew alongside a love for speculative worlds: cyberpunk and sci-fi literature shaped the way he thinks about the future of machines and humans sharing space.
Outside the screen, Manuviraj’s world runs on two wheels and good sound. He’s into motorcycling, constantly exploring new music, and tinkering with digital tools just to see what they’re capable of. Whether he’s breaking down complex software topics or diving into niche corners of tech culture, he’s driven by the same thing: figuring out how things work, and how they could work better. You can also read his work on his Substack.
As you use your Windows machine, it's inevitable that it'll experience driver bloat due to outdated drivers that no longer serve any purpose. Not only do these old drivers take up disk space on your PC, but drivers from ghost devices, anti-cheat software from uninstalled games, and TAP adapters from canceled VPNs may still be installed and could be negatively impacting your PC's boot times.
Driver bloat is one of the first things I check when I notice slow boot times on my Windows PC, and clearing it out almost always noticeably reduces boot time.
I stopped leftover drivers from loading up at boot
You have to be careful not to disable useful drivers
Drivers are what let your OS communicate with the hardware on your PC. Most drivers are granted kernel-level access at the time of installation because directly talking to hardware requires privileges that only the kernel has. Since the kernel loads up before you log in, any leftover drivers can negatively impact your PC's boot time. This usually becomes noticeable only after you've been using your PC for a while.
The easiest way to find and remove these leftover drivers is to use Microsoft's very own Autoruns utility, one of the most useful Sysinternals tools.
You can download it from the Microsoft Learn website, or better yet, do what I do and directly run a live version of it using the Run dialog.
Press Win +R to open Run
Then, input \\live.sysinternals.com\tools\autoruns64.exe and press Enter.
If nothing happens, follow the same process but press CTRL + Shift + Enter to run as an administrator.
Windows may display a security warning. This is completely normal because the app is hosted outside your local network: click the Run option. It's also advisable to create a System Restore Point before removing leftover drivers, just to be safe.
In the Autoruns app, click on the Drivers tab to see all drivers that are loaded during startup. I'd also suggest going to the Options menu at the top and ticking the Hide Microsoft Entries and Hide Windows Entries options to ensure you don't accidentally disable crucial drivers. From the list of drivers, look for ones that belong to devices or software you no longer use: check the Description and Publisher columns to locate them. In my case, I found an orphaned driver that was installed by LatencyMon, a program I'd uninstalled months ago.
It's best to first uncheck drivers, which disables them, and reboot the PC to ensure nothing breaks. You can then delete leftover drivers after you've verified they belong to a device or program you no longer use.
Quiz
8 Questions · Test Your Knowledge
True or False? Ways to cut down Windows boot times
Think you know every trick to make Windows start up faster? Put your knowledge to the test.
Boot SpeedWindowsHardwarePerformanceSettings
01 / 8
Boot Speed
Enabling Fast Startup in Windows can reduce boot times by saving a hibernation file that pre-loads system state on the next startup.
Correct! Fast Startup, found under Power Options, performs a hybrid shutdown that saves the kernel session to a hibernation file. This allows Windows to reload that state on next boot rather than starting from scratch, noticeably cutting startup time.
Not quite. Fast Startup is a real and effective feature. It works by saving the kernel session to disk on shutdown so Windows can restore it quickly on the next boot, acting like a partial hibernation rather than a full cold start.
02 / 8
Settings
Disabling startup programs through Task Manager's Startup tab can help reduce Windows boot times.
Correct! Every program set to launch at startup consumes CPU, RAM, and disk resources during boot. Trimming unnecessary entries in Task Manager's Startup tab reduces this load and can shave seconds off your login-to-desktop time.
Not quite. While some startup programs do load after the desktop appears, they still compete for resources during that critical early window. Disabling unnecessary ones in Task Manager's Startup tab reliably improves perceived and measured boot performance.
03 / 8
Hardware
Replacing a traditional hard disk drive (HDD) with a solid-state drive (SSD) is one of the most impactful ways to reduce Windows boot times.
Correct! SSDs can read data many times faster than mechanical HDDs. Since booting Windows involves loading hundreds of files from storage, this speed advantage translates directly into dramatically faster boot times, often reducing minutes to mere seconds.
Not quite. Upgrading to an SSD is widely considered the single biggest hardware upgrade for boot speed. Even a budget SATA SSD can cut boot times from over a minute on an HDD down to under 15 seconds, because Windows boot is heavily storage-bound.
04 / 8
Performance
Enabling AHCI mode in your system's BIOS settings can help improve boot speeds for SATA drives compared to IDE compatibility mode.
Correct! AHCI (Advanced Host Controller Interface) enables features like Native Command Queuing that allow drives to optimize read/write order, improving throughput during the boot sequence. IDE compatibility mode lacks these modern optimizations and is considered legacy.
Not quite. AHCI mode does provide real performance benefits over IDE compatibility mode for SATA drives. It enables advanced drive features that help during the heavy file-loading phase of booting Windows. Note that switching modes after installation requires a driver adjustment to avoid boot errors.
05 / 8
Windows
Turning off visual effects and animations in Windows, such as window fade effects, will significantly reduce cold boot times from the power button to the desktop.
Correct! Visual effects and animations are largely rendered after Windows has already loaded the desktop environment. While disabling them can make the system feel snappier in daily use, they have little measurable effect on the raw time from pressing the power button to seeing your desktop.
Not quite. Visual effects are handled by the graphics subsystem after the desktop environment is already up and running. They do not meaningfully slow down the kernel and driver loading phases that define cold boot time. Disabling them helps responsiveness but not true boot speed.
06 / 8
Settings
Adjusting the BIOS to prioritize booting from your SSD or HDD before checking other devices like USB drives and optical discs can reduce boot times.
Correct! If your BIOS is set to check USB ports or optical drives before your main drive, it wastes time probing those devices for a bootable OS. Setting your SSD or HDD as the first boot device eliminates that delay and gets Windows loading as fast as possible.
Not quite. Boot order does matter in practice. When the BIOS checks removable media or network adapters before the system drive, it introduces small but real delays. Prioritizing your Windows drive ensures the firmware hands off control immediately without unnecessary probing.
07 / 8
Boot Speed
Keeping Windows and its drivers fully up to date can sometimes improve boot times because updates often include performance and startup optimizations.
Correct! Windows updates frequently include improvements to the boot process, driver efficiency, and system initialization routines. Driver updates from hardware vendors can also reduce the time devices take to initialize during startup, contributing to a faster overall boot.
Not quite. While large feature updates can occasionally cause temporary slowdowns, both Microsoft and hardware manufacturers regularly push updates that optimize boot paths, fix driver bottlenecks, and improve startup efficiency. Keeping your system updated is genuinely good practice for performance.
08 / 8
Hardware
Adding more RAM to a Windows PC will always directly reduce cold boot times regardless of how much RAM was already installed.
Correct! If a system already has sufficient RAM, say 8GB or more for a typical Windows install, adding more will not meaningfully reduce cold boot times. Boot speed is primarily bottlenecked by storage and CPU during initialization, not RAM capacity beyond a reasonable baseline.
Not quite. RAM upgrades help most when a system is starved for memory, but there is a point of diminishing returns. Once Windows has enough RAM to load its boot files and drivers without heavy paging, adding more sticks does not continue to shorten the time from power button to desktop.
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/ 8
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Old drivers are taking up more space than you think
We're talking multiple gigabytes
In addition to leftover drivers loading up during boot, Windows often keeps old driver packages on your drive. This is done so you can roll back to a previous driver version if the current one is buggy. However, these old packages may end up taking unnecessary storage space on your hard drive, especially if you're using a dedicated GPU: NVIDIA and AMD GPU drivers are often more than 1 GB in size.
You can find these old drivers at C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository and delete them manually. However, sifting through them can be cumbersome and risky if you accidentally delete the wrong drivers. What I like to do is use Driver Store Explorer (or RAPR.exe), a tool that automatically scans the aforementioned directory and lists the drivers installed on your Windows PC. You can download Driver Store Explorer from GitHub, or run the following commands in an elevated Command Prompt instance:
Once Driver Store Explorer is up and running, click the Export All Drivers button to create a backup in case things go south. Then, click the Select Old Driver(s) button to automatically select drivers that have a newer version installed on your machine. The selection is usually accurate, but it's best to double-check if any old drivers are left unselected. Click Delete Driver(s) to delete the selected driver packages from your PC. The tool doesn't delete any drivers that are in use: you can delete problematic drivers you don't need by ticking the Force Deletion checkbox before selecting delete.
Once you've done this, it's also worth checking Device Manager for any ghost devices. You can do this by going to View -> Show hidden devices in the Device Manager window. Check if there are any grayed-out devices you no longer use and uninstall them.
Make removing driver bloat a habit
Considering how often Microsoft pushes out Windows Updates, it doesn't take long for old drivers to start eating into your boot times and storage space (especially for PCs using a dedicated GPU). Sadly, there's no easy way to automate this process (I'm open to ideas), so I've simply set up Task Scheduler to launch Driver Store Explorer once each month, so I know it's time to clear out driver bloat from my PC.
Quiz
