Alex Bohdjalian

Passionate about elegant, robust and performant web applications.

3 minute read

Introduction

A few weeks ago, I finally hit my breaking point with my Windows setup. My laptop — once a fast, clean development machine — had become a sluggish, chaotic mess. Programs were installed inconsistently, background processes were eating up resources, and my folder structure was… let’s just say, “improvised.”

I tried quick fixes — uninstalling bloatware, disabling startup apps, running performance checkers — but nothing made a real difference. So, I did what any sane (or slightly desperate) developer would do: I backed up what I needed onto an external SSD, hit the nuclear reset button, and started fresh.

This blog is about how I went from a frustrating, poorly set-up machine to a clean, streamlined developer environment. I’ll walk through what went wrong, how I fixed it, and — most importantly — how I automated the setup so I never have to go through this pain again. If your Windows setup has been slowly rotting over time, this might help you too.

The initial state of things

First, let’s quantify how bad things actually were. Sadly, I forgot to actually capture proof of what I am giving below so you’ll just have to take my word for it.

  • Performance: RAM usage idled at about 80% on my 8GB machine and my CPU usage wasn’t much better. This meant once I had just VS Code and Docker running, my laptops fans were screaming for mercy.
  • Battery: With so many background tasks (bloatware, misconfigured startup apps) and other poorly configured settings, my battery life was practically non-existant and required me to be plugged into a wall constantly.
  • Organisation: Perhaps one of my biggest pain points. This issue ranged from (somehow) having multiple versions of software installed (e.g. Visual Studio 2020 / 2022) to having poorly organised folders, making finding anything difficult.

Fixing the mess

Once I had reset my laptop, I wanted to be intentional about how I set things up this time. I focused on three main goals:

  1. Minimising bloat – Keeping unnecessary software and background processes to a minimum.
  2. Improving organisation – Ensuring a logical, clean folder structure and avoiding redundant installations.
  3. Automating setup – Making future resets easier with scripts and package managers.

Essential System Tweaks

Before installing anything, I made sure to configure Windows properly to improve performance and usability:

  • Dark Mode: Set via Settings > Personalisation > Colours > Choose your mode > Dark (just a personal preference).
  • Taskbar Cleanup: Disabled unnecessary elements (Settings > Personalisation > Taskbar > Search: Hide and Task view: Off).
  • Reduced Visual Effects: Disabled animations for a snappier UI (Settings > Accessibility > Visual effects > Animation effects: Off).
  • Windows Update: Ran all available updates (Settings > Windows Update).
  • Updated Drivers: Lenovo have a pre-installed tool called Lenovo Vantage which makes this easy.
  • Startup Optimisation: Disabled unnecessary startup apps (Task Manager > Startup Apps).

Installing Essential Software

Rather than manually installing each program, I leveraged Windows Package Manager (winget) wherever possible. Here’s the core software I installed:

winget install -e --id=Google.Chrome
winget install -e --id=Microsoft.VisualStudioCode
winget install -e --id=Microsoft.PowerToys
winget install -e --id=Notion.Notion

Some software still required manual intervention:

  • iCloud (via Microsoft Store) – Installed to sync photos and notes, plus the Chrome password extension.
  • Uninstalled OneDrive – Since I don’t use it for personal storage. Unfortunately this can’t be (easily) fully uninstalled, so I settled with disabling it as much as possible.

Keeping a Clean Development Environment

One of my biggest mistakes in the past was cluttering my system with development tools installed directly on Windows. This time, I took a different approach:

  • Using Docker for ephemeral environments – Instead of installing Python, Node.js, or databases like PostgreSQL directly, I now use Docker containers to keep my system clean. For example:

    docker run --rm -it python:latest python

    This way, I always have access to the latest versions without polluting my machine.

  • Using Package Managers for Everything – Where Docker wasn’t practical, I made sure to use proper package managers (e.g., nvm for Node.js, pyenv for Python) to easily switch between versions.

Final Thoughts

With these changes, my laptop went from a sluggish, disorganised mess to a clean, efficient development environment. By keeping bloat to a minimum, improving organisation, and using automation, I’ve ensured that the next time I need to reset my machine, it will be far less painful. Best of all, my RAM usage went down from 80% to around 55%, making everything run much smoother.

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