Before you touch anything
Every step after this is reversible. This one is the reason that stays true.
Optimal handles the restore point and the readout
Launching Optimal does read-only detection — CPU, GPU, memory, boot drive, Windows build and network adapter — so the Dashboard is your spec sheet. And applying anything creates a System Restore point first; if Windows cannot create one, the run stops rather than continuing.
Answer these before you change a setting
What games get played on it — anything with kernel anti-cheat means Secure Boot and TPM stay on, permanently. Is it also a work or school machine, because that decides how far the debloat goes. Which Windows apps are actually used, so you have a whitelist before anything is removed. And is there anything on the drive nobody has a second copy of.
Back up the files first
Documents, Pictures, Desktop, and any game saves that live outside cloud sync. To an external drive or their cloud, before anything else. This step is boring and it is the one you will be glad about.
Create a restore point by hand as well
Optimal makes one before each run, but make a clean one now, before any of this starts, so there is a known-good point that predates the whole session.
SystemPropertiesProtectionWrite down the exact motherboard model
You need it for firmware and chipset drivers, and “a Gigabyte board” is not enough — revisions differ. Optimal's Dashboard reads the board and Windows build for you, or run msinfo32.
msinfo32Check the boot drive's health before you tune around it
A drive throwing reallocated sectors is not a software problem and no setting on this page helps it. Optimal's Apps page installs CrystalDiskInfo through its published WinGet ID if you do not already have something that reads SMART data.
Consider a clean install instead
A three-year-old prebuilt packed with OEM software is often faster to reinstall than to clean. Use a fresh Windows 11 ISO rather than the recovery partition, then rejoin this guide at the firmware phase.