Windows 10: Windows 10 suddenly running very slowly

My PC is suddenly running very slowly and programs are not opening or staying open.


I think I may have installed an update yesterday, but couldn't say which update it is as I don't remember. How can I rectify the problem?

:)

 

Windows 10 Tweaks

Pressing “Windows+Pause Break” (it’s up there next to scroll lock) opens the “System” Window.

Windows 10: In the new version of Windows, Explorer has a section called Quick Access. This includes your frequent folders and recent files. Explorer defaults to opening this page when you open a new window. If you’d rather open the usual This PC, with links to your drives and library folders, follow these steps:

• Open a new Explorer window.
• Click View in the ribbon.
• Click Options.
• Under General, next to “Open File Explorer to:” choose “This PC.”
• Click OK

credit to Lifehacker.

 

Windows Update suddenly hangs?

Windows Update is suddenly hanging for some reason... I went and downloaded and installed the first bunch of updates, restarted when asked, and now when I go back to windows update I just get the window with a white box forever. Reboot and it still does it. This happens to be on my main machine, running windows 7.

I've also noticed when I reboot it says configuring windows update, step 3 of 3, 47%. Maybe it somehow skipped something and is screwed forever?

 

Windows running slowly in specific situations


Over the last few days (since maybe Thursday but definitely Friday) my Win10 machine has been running slowly in certain situations. The programs iTunes, GSAK, and Unreal Tournament 2004 run slowly in general, much slower than my new hardware has been able to output since I bought it less than two months ago. Other programs are substantially slower than normal to load, but act quite fine once they've been loaded (Sid Meier's Civilization V and Overwatch are two notable exmaples - they take up to six times longer to load than they did this time last week). The change was sudden but not noticeable straightaway.

One further change I've noticed is that whenever I go to shut down or reboot the computer, it tells me it's "Getting Windows ready" despite there being no updates to my knowledge. It tends to hang on that screen for some time before it actually shuts down or reboots - I'm not sure how long it takes as I often lose patience and go and do something else, but it's more than expected.

Steps I've already tried:

• rebooting
• antivirus scan
• uninstalling programs I've installed within the last week
• rolling back Windows updates (which I've found to be basically impossible)
• cleaning up the fullest hard drive (I've more than doubled the free space on it)
• updating my video card drivers
• defragging all three hard drives

Any ideas?