features you disabled in Windows 7 and why?

[hotdog666al]

I'm actually amazed by how many of you are completely brainwashed into thinking Windows 7 is literally perfect.

It's good, yes, but there's plenty of people out there who don't like what comes out of the box.

I've disabled Aero for instance, are you going to claim the UI is "perfect" and doesn't need changing, too?

...If so, :laugh:

[Xilo]

I'm actually amazed by how many of you are completely brainwashed into thinking Windows 7 is literally perfect.

It's good, yes, but there's plenty of people out there who don't like what comes out of the box.

I've disabled Aero for instance, are you going to claim the UI is "perfect" and doesn't need changing, too?

...If so, :laugh:

There's a difference between disabling Aero and deleting system DLLs like Udedenkz does.

[LiquidSolstice]

There's a difference between disabling Aero and deleting system DLLs like Udedenkz does.

Thank you.

Choice is one thing, killing functionality is an entirely different ballgame and is pretty stupid. Sure, you can fire back with "it's his computer, let him do what he wants" but we're not trying to tell him not to do what he does, we're trying to say that it's a really stupid idea to do so.

[neo158]

There's a difference between disabling Aero and deleting system DLLs like Udedenkz does.

That's exactly the point I've been trying to get across in my posts but maybe I wasn't clear enough.

As I said before, the only ones qualified to "tweak" or "optimise" Windows are Microsoft. By "tweak" or "optimise", I mean deleting system files that you think are not needed, not disabling services or switching Aero off.

Oh, and Chrysalis I don't have my "head up Microsofts ass" as you put it. Heres a thought, try reading the other posts first!!!

[pezzonovante]

Windows 7 is the best operating system I've ever used. I love everything about windows 7. The only setting I change is to put the UAC slider higher to "Always Notify" mode. Apart from that, nothing needs to be changed. The UI is awesome. So any amount of tweak will just make things worse.

[bogas04]

Everything which is different from vista , superbar/shake/snap/peek/orb... Im just not liking the new way , its not productive , i mean what will we gain by saving some pixels by removing text from the taskbar buttons and adding more of impatience for previews to load. Anyways , this is my perspective.

Now my 7 looks more like vista (Just the Show desktop button is bothering me , any way to HIDE it?). It may sound funny that why i have turned my 7 to vista , in fact i too dont know why im not switching to vista ,,, maybe laziness. :D

7 is nice , but i think the interface overhaul is nothing so gr8. Im using 7 for it is new , faster and is a hot topic :)

[Sunny D.H. Ashton]

system protection: not so friendly and space chewing... better use those free backup utilities

well, will think about enable it when i have a really bigger disk...

[ToastGodSupreme]

I've disabled...

Homegroup - Don't need it, stupid feature.

Indexing - Sucked, just a fantastic way to wear out your hard drive quicker and keep your machine grinding away in the background as it reindexes fairly often. Not to mention it failed to index **** properly. Read more at the bottom about this.

System Restore - I have Acronis True Image for backups. Besides, system restore is NOTORIOUS for ****ing other programs over after it's been used.

Offline Files - Seriously, are we still using this? Please...

SSDP and UPnP - I know how to configure devices and programs for network usage. I do not need something like UPnP holding my hand.

UAC - I don't need my hand held. If I download a virus, that it my problem. But I don't, because I have common sense about what I download and run on my machine.

Pretty boot screen - Meh, I do this on all my computers. I like seeing what's loading in the background and should the day come that my computer freezes as it's booting up, at least I know what the last file it was loading was before it locked up. So I have a starting point for a diagnosis.

Superbar - No thanks. I like to see the names of the programs I'm running. (now if I could just make windows stop grouping them together and keep my taskbar organized by the order in which I opened the programs)

My BIGGEST two gripes about Win7 are the following...

1. Memory management. We are in the age of 4gb and 8gb memory configurations for consumer machines. I have NEVER touched more than 3.5gb of my 8gb total (even running two Aion clients, eclipse, firefox and IE with multiple tabs, and a number of other little programs). But WinXP and Win7 have both bitched about not having enough pagefile (did a few tests a while ago with a 512mb page and 8gb of ram). Excuse me? I'm sitting at less than half my total memory usage and you want to expand my pagefile? That's STUPID. I have an assload of memory and I can't force my computer to use it instead of the hard drive. What good is having 8gb over 4gb now? (yes, I use x64 versions)

2. Windows search. What an abortion it's become.

Look at WinXP... right click on a folder, click search, new search window pops up leaving you to navigate in the original folder still. Type in a file mask such as *.java, then type in key phrase to search within that mask in the box below it, so maybe something like "(int) stat + rnd" and voila, there's my search. And if I didn't like the results, I modify the terms or file mask right there and hit search again. It was PERFECT. No stupid animated character guiding me, just the full, advanced search window with all the lovely options right there, a click away.

Now look at Win7... open folder, click the search bar in the upper right. Type a phrase to search within files in that folder and it's subfolders. Can't specify to search only that folder and not it's subfolders. Wait, what's the syntax to search specific file types? Hold on, gotta go google that. Ok, figured out how to specify a file type mask. Search again. Expected result doesn't show up. But you know it should. Rebuild the index. Oh now it shows up among a lot of other irrelevant results that wouldn't have turned up in the old WinXP search. Now go search a different folder. Oh wait, this one isn't indexed, that's ok, you made sure to tell windows to search the contents of files and folders even if they're not indexed. But you still don't get a result even though you should. So you add that folder and it's subfolders to the index. Rebuild index. Search still doesn't find the result you're looking for even though you KNOW there are files in that directory tree that have that phrase you searched.

Seriously, that's my daily interaction with the Win7 search feature. I would GLADLY take XP's search functionality and bring it into Win7 if I could. I don't CARE that my searches in WinXP took an extra few seconds. At least they WORKED in XP. And it's a HUGE deal to me since I do a lot of stuff that involves finding random **** in php, css, xml, java, sql, and other files.

And it's not just me. A person I work with on a project had to extract some xmls from a program. So he dumps them to his desktop, then opens the desktop folder and tries to search through the sea of xmls for certain phrases within, and even after rebuilding the index, nada. And both of us know how to set up the index feature to cache the contents of specific file types and all that jazz. It's not user error, it's a piece of hard drive grindy **** that Microsoft has forced on the consumer.

/rant

If XP would continue to get supported by MS along with game and hardware companies, I'd stay with it for as long as I could. But unfortunately I know it's end is nigh and that I need to get with the new **** or find myself running into compatibility issues later on. So I'm forced to deal with the suck that MS has thrown into Win7. And being that I can't compromise my gaming performance by attempting to run my stuff on Linux, that's not exactly an option for me.

Sigh... the good ol days of searching, when everything was clear (SS taken from one of my servers running Win2k3):

Edited January 8, 2010 by ToastGodSupreme

[Udedenkz]

#1 - I turned off the PF, no problems on my end. 2GB DDR3 W7 Home Premium x32

#2 - I agree. What baffles me is that there is still no alternative that integrates itself into Windows Explorer / replaces Windows Search.

[LiquidSolstice]

#1 - I turned off the PF, no problems on my end. 2GB DDR3 W7 Home Premium x32

Finally explains why you love "tweaking" so much. Get better hardware. Sheesh.

#2 - I agree. What baffles me is that there is still no alternative that integrates itself into Windows Explorer / replaces Windows Search.

Because we are totally entitled to software, right? Especially one that would require editing the Explorer.exe process, and if you've been following customization trends, that's proving to be fatal for most Win7 installs.

[Xilo]

Sounds like someone doesn't like change... :laugh:

[Udedenkz]

<Snipped>

Because we are totally entitled to software, right? Especially one that would require editing the Explorer.exe process, and if you've been following customization trends, that's proving to be fatal for most Win7 installs.

I don't see why it can't be a shell extension of some sort. I have TeraCopy and that replaces copy/paste commands just fine.

Edited January 8, 2010 by Anaron

[Guest xiphi]

#1 - I turned off the PF, no problems on my end. 2GB DDR3 W7 Home Premium x32

#2 - I agree. What baffles me is that there is still no alternative that integrates itself into Windows Explorer / replaces Windows Search.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_searc..._search_engines

Finally explains why you love "tweaking" so much. Get better hardware. Sheesh.

Um, His specs are fine. My system has an AMD X2 +3800 Socket 939, and 2GB DDR, and yet I feel no need to tweak my system. It flies without doing so.

[jdegree]

XPS Services. No idea what are those for, never used them, and the additional "printers" just kept bugging me.

If someone wants to tell me that it's not the best idea, then please do it now :p

Kept system restore on, I think I've got enough space for that. I'm also fine with Windows Defender + MSE.

I am under the impression that Windows Defender is automatically disabled if MSE is installed. Could I have read something wrong or just misinformed?

[RoomKid]

Internet Explorer 8, its of no use to me.

[notuptome2004]

Disabling Aero in windows 7 is also disabling new functionality and if for some reason that functionality like Aero peek and such is taking to long to r show up then there is a driver or something causing it cause my moms athlon XP 2200+ running 8400GS runs perfectly with it and each Preview window pops up instantly

[Wakers]

I am under the impression that Windows Defender is automatically disabled if MSE is installed. Could I have read something wrong or just misinformed?

That is true.

[Shadrack]

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.

I think that the big deal is that if all these posts go unchallenged some people may read this thread and think that disabling anything-and-everything in Windows 7 is a good idea.

I really don't care if you disable IE or System Restore or ...whatever... but I do care if you post on an Internet forum and make the suggestion (in whatever way) that disabling IE or System Restore is a "good idea." I will have to make a post saying that I disagree with that, because I do.

[Rudy]

There should be an easy way to uninstall Windows Defender

[ObiWanToby]

There should be an easy way to uninstall Windows Defender

Is it that offensive to you?

[Rudy]

Is it that offensive to you?

yes it is

[ObiWanToby]

yes it is

May I ask why? Good thing you have hackintoshes.

[Rudy]

May I ask why? Good thing you have hackintoshes.

I just don't have a need for it on my system

[hdood]

I disabled the whole of Windows 7 and now it functions and performs exactly like XP.

[Wakers]

I disabled the whole of Windows 7 and now it functions and performs exactly like XP.

Waste of money then, eh?

What do people have with antiquated technology?

XP is an inefficient slug compared to Windows 7.