The best way to speed up your PC is to give it more available memory—but freeing up as much of the memory you already have is cheaper and easier than cracking open your case to install a new stick of RAM. It takes a lot of memory to get a modern Windows system up and ... well, not doing anything in particular, really. Between cryptic system processes, confusing "helper" applications, and background utilities, a whole lot of who-knows-what gobbles up memory and slows down your work. While a lot of programs claim to optimize memory use and pare down processes, Windows' built-in Task Manager can do the job just fine, given the right tools and know-how. Today you'll extend and empower Windows' Task Manager to speed up your system by cutting out unnecessary memory hogs. Read more Read more How do you keep your Windows machine running light and fast? What built-in processes and apps have you found pretty much useless? Go ahead, call them out in the comments and share any other hard-won memory-freeing tips.
Tags: Feature, Downloads, Memory, Open Sourcery, Optimization, RAM, Task manager, Top, Utilities, Windows, Windows Tip, Windows Vista, Windows Vista Tip, Windows XP, Lifehacker
