Optimization of Windows 7

DIY-Computer-Repair can help!

Discover more optimization for your Windows 7 with the information in the Windows 7 Ultimate Guide.

For the most part optimizing Win 7 is pretty close to XP, how ever some of the Services that you could turn off in XP if turned off in Win 7 will have side effects, some of them will cause the OS to not restart. I will cover those in the Services tutorial.

Other than some of the options being buried deeper and named differently optimizing is fairly easy and if you mess it up you can put it back to default.

So you have restarted after the install and here is the first screen, this is a standalone system, that is it is not in a domain.

First screen after completing installation.

Then the OS builds your desktop, after the install the desktop that you saw was the Administrator's desktop.

The standard desktop, no modifications.

By setting the desktop to a solid color and setting the desktop icons.

Turn on the desktop icons and change to solid color.

The next thing you can do is turn off some of the options such as 'Hide notification area', set the task bar to the bottom of the screen.

Be careful when turning off items on the stat menu, I lost the 'All Programs' the first time I turned off 'Default Programs' under the customize button. (These tips and techniques are from the Windows 7 Ultimate Guide.)

Some of the installed progams and options.

If you are tired of the .pop up asking if it is ok to change desktop

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items or install software then you can turn it off until you are done. This is called the UAC (User Access Control) to a lower setting until you complete you setup. It is under the 'Getting Started' menu and the label is 'Change UAC Settings'

Changing the User Access Control, after finding it.

You can set the strength of 'Always Notify me;.

Down to 'Never notify me'

Setting the slide bar to the bottom effectivly turns off the notification.

And because the setting is being changed you have to authorize the change. :)

Now you can change what is on the Start Menu from how 'My Computer' to 'My Music' is displayed or not displayed. These controls are for display of the current logged on user. It does not remove the items from the directories.

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Setting what is displayed on the start memu.

In the VM the mouse drags, it is slow so I had to increase the acceleration.

Changing the accelleration of the mouse.

To get the System Properties you can either right click on My Computer or use the control panel, such as here.

Setting the properties on the visual effects.

To cut down on the system memory usage I always turn off all the Visual effects.

Turn off all the visual effects will speed up your system.

Then set the Paging or Swap file.

I try to move the swap file to another drive, in this case there is only the system drive, when I add another drive to the VM then I will move the swap file to that drive.

Moving the swap file off of the system partition.

Lets say you were, ummmm, over zealous in your optimization or turned off something that causes the computer to crash.

You can use the 'Ramdisk options' to reset the Operating system to the default settings, this is the recovery console. To get to the Memory Diagnostics press the 'tab' button. Then you can test the memory in your computer.

Oppps! How do I get my computer to start after I messed it up?

To get to the menu for the System Recovery, with Windows 7 highlighted press F8 then select 'Repair Your Computer' this is misleading because it is for repairing your Operating System,

Menu for 'Repair My Computer', really it should read 'Repair my Operating System'

The first screen, select your keyboard method.

Your user id has to have Administrator Rights to log on.

You will also find more options and setting information in the Self Computer Repair Unleashed! E-Book (view a sample of the E-Book).

Logging in to the Recovery Console, you have to have Administrator Rights!

The options -

Startup Repair

System Restore

System Image Recovery

Window Memory Diagnostic

Command Prompt

This is a vast improvement over the old command prompt recovery console, you don't have to learn MS command syntax! Nice, not as good as the ERD Commander but better than the old Recovery Console!

I go through these options and more in the Windows 7 Ultimate Guide.

For the most part Windows 7 is faster than XP even before the optimization. And that is the reason I am impressed with the work MS has done, this one is going to be my next primary OS once I get it to do what I want it to do and look the way I want.

P.S.

Reset the UAC back to where it was before you started your optimization. Keep the hackers out of your computer!

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