This can be accomplished via the Programs and Features control panel area, under the “Turn Windows features on or off” option. If you find a service or function built into Windows that you know you won’t be using but it starts with the system anyway, consider uninstalling it rather than disabling it.
If disabling services via checkboxes in the configuration utility seems risky for your system, you can also just halt (rather than disable) them via Microsoft’s preferred method, the Services console, and they will restart automatically next reboot with no intervention required. While some of these will be required during gaming or other functions, such as the Steam client service, many will likely not be needed, so it’s the perfect place to start.
Click on the “Services” tab and check “Hide all Microsoft services” for a quick overview of all third-party processes installed on your system. Type “msconfig.exe” at any command prompt or the Start menu and hit Enter to bring up the System Configuration utility, one of Windows’s handiest tools. This will pop up an Explorer window to the right location, which should help. To discover the folder where any running program is kept, just right-click on its entry in the Task Manager and select Open File Location from the menu. If you’re not sure what a background task is doing, finding out where the executable is stored can explain a lot. It pays to know a bit about Windows when deciding which apps and services to kill and which to keep running, but common sense and a few tips can take you pretty far. Can careful cuts to system overhead turn this fashionable, functional featherweight into a contender? Testing yielded several popular 3D titles with near-playable framerates. That doesn’t mean this dog won’t hunt when it comes to gaming, however. Featuring 12 EUs and a 700MHz clockspeed, it supports modern features such as 4K output and H.265 decoding, but is mostly made with office tasks in mind. The integrated Intel HD 400 IGP, based on Broadwell’s built-in HD 5300, fares better. Every little bit counts, especially on lesser hardware.