What is another recommended action to improve boot speed, alongside removing startup applications?

Improving boot speed can greatly enhance the user experience, and one effective method alongside removing startup applications is to defragment the hard drive. When files are spread out across the hard drive in a fragmented manner, the operating system has to work harder to read the data as it boots up, which can slow down the startup process. Defragmentation rearranges the data on the disk, placing related files closer together and allowing the system to access them more quickly. This can result in a more efficient boot process because the operating system can locate and load the necessary files faster.

While other options present useful maintenance tasks, they don't directly relate to improving boot speed in the same manner. For instance, ending processes in Task Manager is a way to free up resources but does not address how files are organized on the disk. Running the Disk Cleanup utility helps by removing unnecessary files, but it doesn't optimize the way data is stored on the hard drive. Installing a solid-state drive (SSD) is indeed a powerful way to improve boot speed as SSDs have much faster access times compared to traditional hard drives. However, it requires hardware changes rather than a software solution, which is why defragmentation is typically seen as a more straightforward recommendation for users aiming to