features you disabled in Windows 7 and why?

[HawkMan]

Not crippled at all. Works faster without Microsoft's spyware applications.

Again it's only spyware if it does it without your knowledge and consent.

and since every one of those asks you to submit data to MS or even requires you to start the app manually... well no.

and none of those have any impact on performance anyway since they don't actively run, and some only run when there's an exception being caught and reported to windows. such as error reporting, wich is a useful tool in getting solutions back from MS about what the problem actually is. and for most problems nowadays they have a solution ready.

[devHead]

Can't think of much I've turned off, now what I've had to turn on on the other hand...

Disabling Tablet tools is absolutely silly, you lose Snip! FAIL

Disabling UAC is unnecessary at this point and has a greater chance of causing new issues (New crappy apps like QB code for it being ON, the trend will continue)

Disable Shadow Copies, cause having a few versions of your files isn't worth a pitiful amount of drive space

Actually, in Windows 7 the Snipping Tool is not a feature with the Tablet PC tools, so you can disable it without losing the Snipping Tool.

[neo158]

Not crippled at all. Works faster without Microsoft's spyware applications.

You keep wearing that tin foil hat of yours!!!!

[brentaal]

Disabled all 30+ services that phone home to microsoft + disabled access to microsoft URLs.

The full list : http://news.softpedia.com/news/30-Windows-...ft-129592.shtml

[Udedenkz]

Removed all high contrast/basic themes, also removed all other themes except for Windows 7 theme (I think without that one it is a no go). Also removed the web folder (it holds wallpapers to accompany the themes).

NTFS compressed the backup folder in winsxs - saved about 100MB of space. Also removed elements in winsxs dealing with defender, mail, and homegroup.

All works for now.

[LiquidSolstice]

BS.

Yeah, except when you realize something won't work, you'll come crying to this forum for help, you won't tell anyone what you disabled, and most likely, similar to the other sheep who "tweak" their system, you'll blame Microsoft for everything and claim it's their fault.

Calling it now.

[Udedenkz]

Yeah, except when you realize something won't work, you'll come crying to this forum for help, you won't tell anyone what you disabled, and most likely, similar to the other sheep who "tweak" their system, you'll blame Microsoft for everything and claim it's their fault.

Calling it now.

If you can disable something useful, you can get it back.

For easy tweaking (disabling services and such), one can just enable them again. For more professional tweaking, there are things called registry backups, system restore, LKGC, and drive images.

I messed up my computer many times. What did I do? System Repair. System Restore. Registry Backup.

You can't make your system useless. :)

Microsoft is to blame for some things. Like some desktop icons becoming transparent or explorer not refreshing after copy/move commands in certain situations.

[Lee G. Veteran]

None. I don't see the point in turning features off or 'optimising' the operating system - with 4 GB of RAM in my machine 10 or 20 MB being used by a service don't bother me.

We're not in 2001 anymore, trying to make XP run well on machines with 256 MB of RAM.

Me too.

[HawkMan]

Removed all high contrast/basic themes, also removed all other themes except for Windows 7 theme (I think without that one it is a no go). Also removed the web folder (it holds wallpapers to accompany the themes).

NTFS compressed the backup folder in winsxs - saved about 100MB of space. Also removed elements in winsxs dealing with defender, mail, and homegroup.

All works for now.

why?.... really. WHY?

[brentaal]

why?.... really. WHY?

Cuz **** feels so cash.

[etempest]

None, I find none bothersome or intrusive enough to notice it.

UAC has been toned down to where I can tolerate it.

System Restore/Shadow Copy, etc eats up space... but have plenty to spare.

[rafaqueque]

Disabled System Protection (restore, whatever) because I just don't want it and Windows Defender because is useless, imo.

[Udedenkz]

why?.... really. WHY?

Winter Break; Bored.

In other news, removed windows-help files from winsxs.

[BajiRav]

Winter Break; Bored.

In other news, removed windows-help files from winsxs.

Quick without searching, do you know what the sxs in winsxs stands for?

[neo158]

Removed all high contrast/basic themes, also removed all other themes except for Windows 7 theme (I think without that one it is a no go). Also removed the web folder (it holds wallpapers to accompany the themes).

NTFS compressed the backup folder in winsxs - saved about 100MB of space. Also removed elements in winsxs dealing with defender, mail, and homegroup.

All works for now.

It might work....for now.

But winsxs, or windows Side by Side Assembly, is used to eliminate dll hell.

It stores multiple versions of dll files to prevent problems with version conflicts, missing and duplicate DLLs, and incorrect or missing registration. This reduces dependency problems for applications that include an SxS manifest.

So, enjoy your crippled machine....while it lasts!!!!

Source: Wikipedia

[The Laughing Man]

I cannot believe such crap from people in this thread, everyone is jumping down throats saying omg your crippling your system omg you disabled IE , grow up will ya.

[neo158]

I cannot believe such crap from people in this thread, everyone is jumping down throats saying omg your crippling your system omg you disabled IE , grow up will ya.

The point is they are crippling their systems, disabling components such as IE using turn windows components on/off or disabling services are not a problem but removing things like files from the winSxS is crippling the system as those files are needed to prevent problems later.

Edited December 29, 2009 by neo158

[The Laughing Man]

The point is they are crippling their systems, disabling components such as IE using turn windows components on/off or disabling services are not a problem but removing things like files from the winSxS is crippling the system as those files are needed to prevent problems later.

OK so what big deal? if that person wishes to do so let them instead of being immature about it. To say somone is crippling their system by removing IE or Windows Components hardly says that the computer is crippled. If I wish to disable IE or System Restore who cares? It's my system to mess with, Yes I agree some people dont know what they are doing but for those like me who do, lay off will ya.

[neo158]

OK so what big deal? if that person wishes to do so let them instead of being immature about it. To say somone is crippling their system by removing IE or Windows Components hardly says that the computer is crippled. If I wish to disable IE or System Restore who cares? It's my system to mess with, Yes I agree some people dont know what they are doing but for those like me who do, lay off will ya.

Maybe you should calm down a bit before posting, I wasn't even talking about windows components, all I'm saying is that when people start deleting critical system files to disable features then that's crippling the system.

The sad fact is that some of those people will then come on here and say that windows 7 is rubbish because they deleted files and it stopped working.

Edited December 29, 2009 by neo158

[*RedBull*]

It looks like I'm the only one who hasn't disabled anything, I feel like a newbie. :p

I haven't disabled anything, and I'm a ******* pro.

You are not alone, I too am an IT professional, and I don't disable anything yet. I've not found things bothersome in Win7 to bother with tweaking. I tweaked XP out back in the day, I tweaked Vista a little, and I've not found a good reason to start tweaking W7. It simply does a great job so far. I may go in and disable a few things from the start up menu that do not need to be running, but that'd be it. Probably I won't do it though. I'm happy with W7. (Y)

[neo158]

You are not alone, I too am an IT professional, and I don't disable anything yet. I've not found things bothersome in Win7 to bother with tweaking. I tweaked XP out back in the day, I tweaked Vista a little, and I've not found a good reason to start tweaking W7. It simply does a great job so far. I may go in and disable a few things from the start up menu that do not need to be running, but that'd be it. Probably I won't do it though. I'm happy with W7. (Y)

Same here, and I also run 7 HP on a netbook without any issues.

[*RedBull*]

Maybe you should calm down a bit before posting, I wasn't even talking about windows components, all I'm saying is that when people start deleting critical system files to disable features then that's crippling the system.

The sad fact is that some of those people will then come on here and say that windows 7 is rubbish because they deleted files and it stopped working.

Exactly, I found that out back when I was all into tweaking XP. I finally reached a point where I realized it was largely counter productive with the quality of hadware availible these days. I even stopped OC'ing my system as a result. It just isnt' worth the trouble anymore.

[neo158]

Exactly, I found that out back when I was all into tweaking XP. I finally reached a point where I realized it was largely counter productive with the quality of hadware availible these days. I even stopped OC'ing my system as a result. It just isnt' worth the trouble anymore.

I totally agree, the way I look at it Windows 7 is pretty much optimised for the hardware available these days anyway. I also feel that the only ones that know windows 7 well enough to tweak it are Microsoft themselves.

[zhangm Supervisor]

Many of the "tweaks" that are out there probably came from Microsoft in the first place. The issue with applying them is that the vast majority are for use under special circumstances. Obviously, there are many hardware configurations that must be supported by Windows, and it does a fine job running on many systems, however, some people run with unusual hardware combinations, or atypical usage scenarios that might not work optimally under the default Windows configuration. In these cases, tweaks may be warranted.

Need to run a kiosk? By all means, strip the system. Using some obscure hard drive setup on an archaic motherboard? Might need to tweak a few registry settings. Average user? Windows is already set up for you, so there is no need to touch it.

I've dealt with people who have followed tweaking guides and ended up creating problems for themselves.

My computer keeps popping up this error box every 20 minutes, what can I do?

After establishing that it doesn't look like malware... Have you tried System Restoring to sometime before this happened?

There are no restore points listed.

Did you disable System restore? (Yes, they did). Ok, when was the last time you updated Windows?

I never update Windows, my friend says that that's how Microsoft spies on me.

That's bull****, run Windows Update. If it doesn't fix the issue, it at least will eliminate some variables.

I can't run Windows Update, it says that it can't find some DLL file.

Ok, list for me all the tweaks that you've applied to this computer.

I've applied regtweaks.reg that I found on a forum.

Mother****er...

[LiquidSolstice]

I cannot believe such crap from people in this thread, everyone is jumping down throats saying omg your crippling your system omg you disabled IE , grow up will ya.

Do you even have the slightest idea how many applications depend on Internet Explorer? Winamp, for example, uses it, as well as countless other applications. Internet Explorer isn't just an application, it's also framework. It might not be such a big deal in Windows 7, but disabling it before sometimes (more times than not) resulted in severe issues with programs that contacted the internet, as well as Windows Explorer.