5 things you should do with a new laptop before using it

by Edward Harper April 27, 2026

There’s nothing quite like setting up a brand-new laptop. And for most of us, that means installing favorite apps, transferring essential data, and personalizing the look and feel of the desktop. But that shouldn’t be all. Not if you care about performance, privacy, and longevity.

Spending a few minutes before you settle into your laptop as a daily driver can make a big difference. Simple tweaks made early on can keep the battery healthier for longer, prevent unnecessary slowdowns, and reduce how much data your system shares in the background. And the good news is that these are all one-time steps.

Limit battery charge

Protect your battery from day one

Your laptop’s battery starts aging the moment you turn it on for the first time. You can keep the screen scratch-free and baby the keyboard, but the battery is what determines how long your laptop feels new.

While there’s nothing you can do to keep the battery healthy forever, you can slow down how fast it wears out. Charging the battery to 100% repeatedly puts extra stress on it, and over time, that can accelerate degradation. By setting a charge limit, usually around 80 percent, you can reduce that wear and preserve battery health in the long run.

Remove Bloatware

Clean the clutter

There’s a strange tradition in the laptop world where brand-new machines arrive already cluttered. What makes this worse is that it comes from both Microsoft and the laptop manufacturer.

This usually means a mix of apps like Teams, Xbox, and Clipchamp, alongside trial antivirus programs and random tools from manufacturers. These are commonly referred to as bloatware, and while none of them are bad on their own, together they add up. They take up storage space, run quietly in the background, and in some cases launch automatically at startup.

Removing bloatware is also great for privacy. And the best part is that you don’t have to uninstall each app one by one. You can use a third-party tool like Win11bloat or Atlas toolbox to remove all the useless preinstalled apps in one go.

Update drivers and Windows

More important than you think

A new laptop might look perfectly set out of the box, but that’s rarely the case. Manufacturers typically ship devices with drivers and Windows versions that were finalized weeks or even months earlier. So by the time you get it, it’s already behind on updates.

That’s why one of the things you need to do is head to Settings > Windows updates and install any pending updates. These typically include security fixes, performance improvements, and most importantly, new features.

Drivers are just as important. They control how your hardware talks to Windows, including things like Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, trackpad gestures, and audio. If these drivers are outdated, you may run into issues. Most laptop makers provide a dedicated app that can check for driver updates, so all you have to do is open it and hit Update.

Monitor privacy settings

Make your laptop more private

Most default Windows settings are designed to get you up and running with as little friction as possible. That sounds nice, but some of these Windows settings are also a privacy nightmare.

Microsoft uses these settings to collect all kinds of information about you, including diagnostic data, typing habits, location history, and app usage. Take a look at your Microsoft Privacy Dashboard, and you’ll see just how much data has already been collected.

Of course, Microsoft says it does this to improve features and recommendations. But it also means you’re practically giving Microsoft deep insight into how you use your laptop.

The good thing is Windows lets you disable most of these options. Start by heading to Settings > Privacy & security and going through each category. Don’t worry, changing these settings won’t break any of the features. It’ll just make your laptop more private, as it should be.

Set up automatic backup

Plan for the worst while everything works

Nothing feels better than a fresh laptop, and nothing feels worse than losing data on one. That’s why setting up automatic backups should be a day-one task.

Windows already includes an easy way to do this. Head to Settings > Accounts > Windows backup, and you’ll find options to save your files, settings, and even Wi-Fi passwords. The catch is that it relies on OneDrive, so you’ll need to use Microsoft’s cloud storage to take full advantage of it.

If you want to back up everything to physical storage, a tool like Macrium Reflect is a great alternative. It lets you create a full backup of your system, so if something goes wrong, you can restore your laptop to exactly how it was, apps, files, and settings included. You can even schedule these backups to run every week or month, so once it’s set up, you don’t have to think about it again.

A few smart decisions made at the beginning while setting up your laptop can make a big difference. Of course, this is just scratching the surface. There's a lot more you can do, like disable ads everywhere, change default apps, and enable features like System Restore. None of this is mandatory, but you’ll be glad you took the time.

5 things you should do with a new laptop before using it