Windows 7 Tips & Tricks?

[Elessar]

I did a search and the only thing I could find was something form back in May...anything recent? I'm looking for services I can safely turn off, things I can tweak, etc.

[Yochanan]

This site looks good.

[BoDEAN]

Leave it alone, runs fine as is. This isnt xp or vista.

[.Markus]

Microsoft has been trying really hard in order to minimize the foot prints of services and resources in Windows 7.

I would use a large portion of caution when enabling/disabling services which are therefore claimed to enhance the user experience.

The most stupid thing I've seen lately is the ''RAM optimizer'' tools offered by various Tweaking softwares.

[yxz]

sc.exe config SysMain start= disabled

reg.exe delete HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\WMI\Autologger\ReadyBoot /f

:shiftyninja:

[Salty Wagyu]

Yep, nothing's really worth tweaking in Windows 7. The only ones I have done so far is to halve the start menu and taskbar thumbnail hover time in the registry, that's very little compared to the 20-30 tweaks I used to do for Windows XP. Most of my other tweaks have been for the sake of my new SSD, changing user/windows temp folder locations and firefox cache to my mechanical disk for e.g.

[Elessar]

Anyway to make the spacing around icons on the taskbar smaller? So much space wasted with these huge gaps...

[devHead]

Here's a good one. Create a New > Shortcut (on your desktop, for example) and paste the text below into the Path field:

C:\Windows\System32\rundll32.exe shell32.dll,Control_RunDLL desk.cpl,Advanced,@Advanced

(Assuming Windows is installed on your C: drive).

This will put a shortcut to the Window Color and Appearance dialog that otherwise requires several clicks to get to. You can select a different icon from Shell32.dll that is more appropriate.

[Zmijutin]

sc.exe config SysMain start= disabled

reg.exe delete HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\WMI\Autologger\ReadyBoot /f

:shiftyninja:

What is this?

[lnmnky]

Bought N edition? and want WMP? Released today.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details...;displayLang=en

[null_]

There's no need to tweak services or disable features in Windows 7 for the sake of gaining 1 or 2 seconds in performance (or quite possibly causing a performance decrease). Just leave it alone.

[Night Prowler]

Leave it alone, runs fine as is. This isnt xp or vista.

This is EXACTLY why Windows gets a bad reputation. Everyone want to tinker and they haven't the slightest idea what they are doing. This is what gives Apple all their ammunition for all their crappy ads that only bash Microsoft for it's bad user experience in order to try and lure the unsuspecting, and uneducated Microsoft users over to the dark side.

If you are looking for a major boost in performance; GET A SSD, Preferably an Intel X25M!

[_Xx_HeX_xX_]

Actually, running a 32bit app in a 64bit os actually required the same amount of addressed ram, this being said running a 32bit OS will address 32bit addy space + 32bit of 0's. With this being the case 32bit apps are less efficient on a 64bit OS. Please feel free to look it up. Not to mention the other fact that your OS actually is running an emulator to even run 32bit apps to begin with. So once again either run a 32bit version of win7 with your 32bit apps, or run a 64bit version with only 64bit apps

Alway run a page file, if you have 6+ gigs ram, then only run a 512 MB page file, but always run with a page file, unless you wanna see the failure rate of your ram 10x the current.

[Kyang]

Sometimes I think if MS didn't advertise a new feature, or even name it publicly, no one would run around extolling the benefits of disabling it.

[Migra]

My tip as .NET developer and DJ/Producer is:

To set theme to Windows Classic (Windows 2000 Style) and get a USB pendrive of 4GB at least to use it as ReadyBoost... Doing this you're going to improve performance so nice... not greatly nor amazingly but you're gonna feel the difference!.

[Zmijutin]

My tip as .NET developer and DJ/Producer is:

To set theme to Windows Classic (Windows 2000 Style) and get a USB pendrive of 4GB at least to use it as ReadyBoost... Doing this you're going to improve performance so nice... not greatly nor amazingly but you're gonna feel the difference!.

Even if we have 4 or 8GB of RAM?

[+Anarkii Subscriber²]

Can we stop the insults and get back to what the topic is, yaknow... tweaks and tips?

My tip - use group policy to point to any custom interface explorer.exe's, don't overwrite the one in your windows directory! if anything goes wrong, it is just a matter of returning to group policy and removing the entry pointing to that new explorer.exe!

[hotdog666al]

To all those who are against tweaking...

Some people, myself included, enjoy tweaking the **** out of our OS.

Let us do it, quit your bitchin', k?

Now post some god damn links!

[Hani]

To all those who are against tweaking...

Some people, myself included, enjoy tweaking the **** out of our OS.

Let us do it, quit your bitchin', k?

Now post some god damn links!

Agreed.

http://www.<< spam >>/tutorials/11728...indows-7-a.html

http://www.<< spam >>/tutorials/717-s...n-speed-up.html

[yxz]

disable ipv6

reg.exe add HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\TCPIP6\Parameters /v DisabledComponents /t reg_dword /d 255 /f

[StarLion]

Why would you want to disable IPv6?

More importantly, why would you want to disable it through the registry rather than just unticking a checkbox in your network adapter's properties sheet?

[x-byte]

Good question ... You actually need it for some features. Homegroups is one. Like most "tips and tweaks" that is just silly.

Here's a useful tip for a change:

- Click Windows button and write calibrate.

- Open Calibrate Display Colors

- Follow the wizard

Enjoy a much better display color and contrast

[Subject Delta]

Oh here's an actual tip:

For applications that support having multiple instances opened, if you want to launch another incidence of the same application from the superbar, hold in shift and left click the icon.

[devHead]

Here's a geeky tweak that probably you don't really need, but is cool to see. It works actually from Windows 2000 onward.

Open the Local Group Policy Editor (the easiest way: type 'gpedit.msc' in the Start Menu search box)

Navigate to: Computer Configuration > Adminstrative Templates > System.

In the right hand side, scroll down to where you see the setting 'Verbose vs normal status messages'

By default, it's not configured. Double click to edit the settings, and select the Enabled radio button.

Click OK, and you're good to go. When you log off or shutdown, and when logging in, rather than simply the Welcome, or Preparing Desktop message, the screen will show what is occurring during the login / logoff process.

It's not really needed, but if there is some glitch you're experiencing or hang up, you may be able to see where it's occurring. As the comments for this option states:

Directs the system to display highly detailed status messages.

If you enable this setting, the system displays status messages that reflect each step in the process of starting, shutting down, logging on, or logging off the system.

This setting is designed for sophisticated users that require this information.

If you consider yourself a sophisticated user, this is for you!

Oh here's an actual tip:

For applications that support having multiple instances opened, if you want to launch another incidence of the same application from the superbar, hold in shift and left click the icon.

Ah, thank you Frank! I'm glad someone still remembers the original intent of this topic.

[HAckEur]

you can drag Notification Area Icons with the left mouse button UP to hide them and drag them DOWN the same way to show them - quickest and easiest way :cool: