Tweaks for Faster Windows 7

[Raa]

I'm pretty sure it was found that Windows 7 didn't need tweaking 5 months ago. :)

[Mouettus]

i didn't read the thread so don't hate if it's already been said.

msconfig -- boot -- advanced options -- number of processors

keeping your startup list kinda short

disabling some un-necessary services and UAC

installing a light AV (ala MSE or avast)

not too much you can do actually. this is no winXP that can gain a big boost by tweaking it up.

[bjoswald]

Ugh. I hate when people suggest disabling UAC. That's like moving into gang territory and leaving your front door wide open! What, are you ****ing crazy?

Thanks for the MSConfig tip about multiple processors. Never knew you could do that!

As for services... Well, I leave them well enough alone. But if I do find one that's truly unnecessary (e.g. Remote Registry), I set them to "Manual".

MSE is a "light" AV? News to me. But it only seems to really chug along like a fat kid on a Segway when it's performing a scan. Other than that, it's pretty tame.

[Nagisan]

Ugh. I hate when people suggest disabling UAC. That's like moving into gang territory and leaving your front door wide open! What, are you ****ing crazy?

While I do agree disabling UAC is bad, I do not think its quite as bad as your comparison to leaving the front door open. Last time I used XP, with antivirus (MSE) and being as careful as I always have been on Vista and 7 (using Chrome instead of IE, not opening random junk, etc), I still somehow managed to get a virus that MSE could not detect. Chances are, if XP had UAC, that would have never happened as I would have never clicked "Allow" to the random program I wasn't trying to install or launch even.

Anyone disabling UAC is simply putting themselves at greater risk of viruses compared to those running UAC. The only time I ever see a prompt anymore is when installing a new game that released or uninstalling an old one I do not play anymore, which happens maybe 2-3 times a month. Not really a big issue, so why not leave it enabled?

[YounGMessiah]

msconfig -- boot -- advanced options -- number of processors

Well that does nothing ^^

As the rest have said and I am restating there is not much needed tweaks for Windows 7, I just disabled some services (for security & non usage), disabled NTFS last accessed time stamp, disabled DOS 8.3 name creation for files, improved CPU time scheduling, disabled performance counters, improved DNS caching, decreased software hang time, and disabled low disk space check.

[LiquidSolstice]

msconfig -- boot -- advanced options -- number of processors

That will do absolutely nothing for you to help make anything "faster".

keeping your startup list kinda short

This doesn't "improve" performance, it just makes your startup time less.

disabling some un-necessary services and UAC

Services, that's a very muddy marsh to be wading in to, and turning off UAC is a terrible idea. It's not a babysitter, it does much more than that.

installing a light AV (ala MSE or avast)

If you know what you're doing to the point that you'd be ok with shutting of UAC, you sure as hell don't need an AV. I don't use one and haven't done so in almost two years. It's not that difficult; if what you're about to open may have the chance of being infected, then you're opening the wrong things. INstalling an AV will only decrease performance, adding in an extra constantly running service, chewing up your hard drive with realtime file scanners, and sometimes over-agressive prevention-based security.

[djnv2010]

UAC is for morons who click on anything that says "get this free now" etc...it is just another unnecessary annoyance...also, how much faster can you want Win 7 to be? unless you have a **** processor and a small amount of ram, Win 7 kicks right quick!!

[LiquidSolstice]

UAC is for morons who click on anything that says "get this free now" etc...it is just another unnecessary annoyance...also, how much faster can you want Win 7 to be? unless you have a **** processor and a small amount of ram, Win 7 kicks right quick!!

Ignorance these days. :( *Sigh*

Go on, continue your assumptions, if they make you happy, then whatever :)

[djnv2010]

ignorance? why? i don't surf for child pron or download any program that i haven't researched, or click on any link i don't know is risky...i don't need my OS asking me every time i try to do something on my pc...at least on Win 7, UAC isn't as "babysitter" as it was in Vista, but i still have it off, and i run AV and spyware scanners and watch where my surfing takes me. Tell me why i should turn on UAC and what UAC can do for me that i can't do myself LIQUID?

[LiquidSolstice]

ignorance? why? i don't surf for child pron or download any program that i haven't researched, or click on any link i don't know is risky...i don't need my OS asking me every time i try to do something on my pc...at least on Win 7, UAC isn't as "babysitter" as it was in Vista, but i still have it off, and i run AV and spyware scanners and watch where my surfing takes me. Tell me why i should turn on UAC and what UAC can do for me that i can't do myself LIQUID?

Wow, you're totally *not* insecure about yourself.

If there's an app that's trying to move something into my Windows or Program Files folder, I'd like to know. If an mp3 file, for some reason, is asking or admin privilegs, I'd like to know. It takes all of a second to click "yes" if there's nothing wrong, and I don't see enough UAC prompts during my normal working day to be annoyed.

You realize, you all-knowing-computer-god, that if you're that utterly sure about what you're clicking on and you watch where your surfing takes you, it's equally idiotic to have AV/Spyware software. Why do you need them?

I've gone years with nothing but UAC and the default Windows FIrewall settings and I haven't gotten a single bit of malware/virus/infection etc. Computer security for people experienced with computers is not that difficult.

Anyways, enjoy sitting on your pedestal. The view must be nice from up there ;)

[Mouettus]

wow... what a bunch of boosted-ego punks posting on this thread

can't even have a nice civilized conversation about performance and security without leaving your name calling on a leash.

[LiquidSolstice]

wow... what a bunch of boosted-ego punks posting on this thread

can't even have a nice civilized conversation about performance and security without leaving your name calling on a leash.

A) I didn't start this.

B) I don't see you contributing anything of value to this thread (I at least pointed out what snake-oil tips won't do anything). It's so easy to sit on your pedestal and hop into a thread to proclaim that everyone else is going crazy but do nothing to bring it back.

[Astra.Xtreme]

Wow, you're totally *not* insecure about yourself.

If there's an app that's trying to move something into my Windows or Program Files folder, I'd like to know. If an mp3 file, for some reason, is asking or admin privilegs, I'd like to know. It takes all of a second to click "yes" if there's nothing wrong, and I don't see enough UAC prompts during my normal working day to be annoyed.

You realize, you all-knowing-computer-god, that if you're that utterly sure about what you're clicking on and you watch where your surfing takes you, it's equally idiotic to have AV/Spyware software. Why do you need them?

I've gone years with nothing but UAC and the default Windows FIrewall settings and I haven't gotten a single bit of malware/virus/infection etc. Computer security for people experienced with computers is not that difficult.

Anyways, enjoy sitting on your pedestal. The view must be nice from up there ;)

Settle down. Just because somebody doesn't agree with your terms of "security" doesn't give you the right to snap at them. And we don't care if you started it or not...

I also disable UAC as it's an annoyance and I don't need my computer to hold my hand.

[fix-this!]

no tweaks at all. windows 7 x64 with my 8gb of ram flies!

[LiquidSolstice]

Settle down.??Just because somebody doesn't agree with your terms of "security" doesn't give you the right to snap at them.??And we don't care if you started it or not...

I also disable UAC as it's an annoyance and I don't need my computer to hold my hand.

It's not about "agreeing" with my terms of security, it's the idiocy of arrogance when you claim to know every little detail about yoru computer, and don't need it holding your hand, and that you know every single website you go to, and then turning around and saying that you use AV/Spyware software.

Turning off UAC is still just dumb. I ask you, how many times a day do you see the prompt??

[fix-this!]

I also disable UAC as it's an annoyance and I don't need my computer to hold my hand.

i wouldn't advise totally disabling it, just set it lower. your are leaving yourself open to malware.

[Jen Smith]

disabling some un-necessary services and UAC

Disabling UAC or not, that's on you (and the subject of many, many threads), but be careful with some of the services. They're not quite as "clear cut" as the were with XP, or even Vista. Readyboost is a good example, disabling it breaks portions of SuperFetch, and also disables boot-time optimizations. Some of the networking services which used to be safely killed off in XP will now break workgroup networking. (Ran into this one; could access shares by IP but not by name.) For me, the only ones I ever kill off now is the Media Center stuff, as I'll never, ever use them.

Keep in mind too that 7 seems to handle services a bit differently. My Windows 7 system, which is probably running about twice as memory services as my old XP installation, is actually using less memory after the system has idled for a minute. Not sure if it's "offloading" idle services, maybe an expert can chime in about that one, but after they've idled for a minute or two, Win7 reports about 8% more free memory on my rig than XP has, and it has a lot more running. Go figure. Plus with the boot time optimizing that Readyboost does, it gets up and running noticeably quicker than XP did as well, even after using BootVis.

[fix-this!]

all disabling services does is allow a faster startup, nothing more.

[Jen Smith]

all disabling services does is allow a faster startup, nothing more.

I probably wasn't totally clear (English is my second, sometimes I get it wrong) but I'm questioning if it even really does that. Windows 7 optimizes it's boot on its own, once it's done that it boots absurdly quick.. I doubt you'll see much of a difference in speed either. But I agree, the process really isn't worth the trouble anymore, that was buried along with XP.

[YounGMessiah]

Hey this is the best tweak ever!

Throw ur computer to the wall and no more prompts! No more speed issues either :)

[kjx]

all disabling services does is allow a faster startup, nothing more.

I wouldn't call it "disabling" services, but "optimizing" services.

And no, optimizing also results in lower memory usage. And on mid-range and lower end machines it can increase system responsivenes. Possibly on higher-end hardware also but you'd be hard pressed to notice the difference.

I probably wasn't totally clear (English is my second, sometimes I get it wrong) but I'm questioning if it even really does that. Windows 7 optimizes it's boot on its own, once it's done that it boots absurdly quick.. I doubt you'll see much of a difference in speed either. But I agree, the process really isn't worth the trouble anymore, that was buried along with XP.

https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/904512-windows-is-taking-over-3-mins-to-boot/page__view__findpost__p__592674062

and

https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/929330-performance-tweaking-results/

[soldier1st]

the only thing that would be worthwhile is to make sure your running the newest drivers but if your low on memory then tune your startups, otherwise leave it alone, as for system restore if you don't have the space for it then simply limit the space it uses. turning the visuals off will not increase performance as the GPU handles that and if your GPU is crap then you should not be running 7.

[Quattrone]

Thanks guys!

[hdood]

all disabling services does is allow a faster startup, nothing more.

All services that are running use some amount of memory and CPU. They are just regular programs. If you disable them, you get that back. Of course, you also lose the functionality the service provides. It isn't magic. Like Jen Smith says, it's not obvious what the services do and what interdependencies there are. It's not obvious from the description of the service. That's why you should generally leave them alone.