Share your Windows 7 tweaks

Danfoss2011 · 13 Apr 2011 at 21:03

I looked but couldn't see much for Windows 7 on here.

I use X86 mainly, i make the following tweaks

MSCONFIG :- Boot timeout change it to 3 from 30 (3 is the lowest it'll go too). Also change under advanced CPU's and RAM to the MAX my system/setup has.

I also disable anything thats not needed for my system to run at startup

I set power to high performance under control pannel

What else does everyone do?

TheVoice · 13 Apr 2011 at 21:11

Most people will, I imagine, agree with me when I say that Win7 requires very little tweaking really. The farthest I go these days is a defrag now and again, running disk cleanup and keeping an eye on startup items.

There's really no need to go changing anything else, as far as performance is concerned.

andshrew · 13 Apr 2011 at 21:40

Danfoss2011 said:
MSCONFIG :- Also change under advanced CPU's and RAM to the MAX my system/setup has.

What exactly is the advantage of changing this?

SiriusB · 13 Apr 2011 at 22:09

andshrew said:
What exactly is the advantage of changing this?

Nothing. It doesn't do anything.

stopper · 14 Apr 2011 at 00:14

TheVoice said:
There's really no need to go changing anything else, as far as performance is concerned.

Disabling indexing is always good if you don't use the crappy search function. :cool:

asim18 · 14 Apr 2011 at 02:20

stopper said:
Disabling indexing is always good if you don't use the crappy search function.

Yeah. I always disable windows search/indexing services. Never ever used it.

I wouldn't call it crap though.

SiriusB · 14 Apr 2011 at 11:36

asim18 said:
Yeah. I always disable windows search/indexing services. Never ever used it.

I wouldn't call it crap though.

Because it isn't. Never had an issue with it really, at least not in Windows 7.

It could do with some improvements no doubt, but for the things I require of it, it does a sterling job. I have also never seen any noticeable improvement in performance when switching it off, either. Even on a crappy laptop it made no difference.

Most of these Windows 7 tweaks seem to come from XP, which is stupid. XP is a completely different, outdated OS and most of the tweaks do nothing on 7.

Deleted member 77746 · 14 Apr 2011 at 11:37

No point tweeking it in my opinion, it does brilliant out of the box.

BigBoy · 14 Apr 2011 at 11:55

iDroid84 said:
No point tweeking it in my opinion, it does brilliant out of the box.

True_Scotsman · 14 Apr 2011 at 11:57

iDroid84 said:
No point tweeking it in my opinion, it does brilliant out of the box.

This.

andy_mk3 · 14 Apr 2011 at 12:00

All I do is keep startup items to a bare minimum. Nothing else is touched performance-wise apart from the usual housekeeping

stopper · 14 Apr 2011 at 12:25

SiriusB said:
Because it isn't. Never had an issue with it really, at least not in Windows 7.

It could do with some improvements no doubt, but for the things I require of it, it does a sterling job. I have also never seen any noticeable improvement in performance when switching it off, either. Even on a crappy laptop it made no difference..

Indexing leaves traces of files on your pc that you could have deleted years ago, thus clogging up the system over time and slowing it down.
So if you do use it and you are not a regular formatter, it is best you disable then re-enable every month or so to keep your system clear and up to speed.

Qu3 · 14 Apr 2011 at 12:30

TheVoice said:
The farthest I go these days is a defrag now and again, running disk cleanup and keeping an eye on startup items.

Not even defrag, windows automatically does it every Wednesday I found..

Deleted member 77746 · 14 Apr 2011 at 13:39

Qu3 said:
Not even defrag, windows automatically does it every Wednesday I found..

By default it's scheduled. This can be turned of but people with SSD drives don't need to defrag.

SiriusB · 14 Apr 2011 at 14:40

stopper said:
Indexing leaves traces of files on your pc that you could have deleted years ago, thus clogging up the system over time and slowing it down.
So if you do use it and you are not a regular formatter, it is best you disable then re-enable every month or so to keep your system clear and up to speed.

Utter BS.

All PCs/Laptops I deal with that have Windows 7 have been running for over a year and there is no slow down.

alex24 · 14 Apr 2011 at 14:43

The only thing I've managed to find that makes Windows 7 run faster is an SSD.

Mr_Orange · 14 Apr 2011 at 14:52

No actual tweaks for Windows 7 itself for me. I just run msconfig and disable anything that I don't want at startup.

SiriusB · 14 Apr 2011 at 14:56

Mr_Orange said:
No actual tweaks for Windows 7 itself for me. I just run msconfig and disable anything that I don't want at startup.

Use Autoruns from the Sysinternals Suite [a free MS product]. Shows you far more than MSConfig!

Stoner81 · 14 Apr 2011 at 14:58

Mr_Orange said:
No actual tweaks for Windows 7 itself for me. I just run msconfig and disable anything that I don't want at startup.

I do that via services.msc instead.

I disable Windows Defender and Windows Firewall (I use Eset Smart Security 4) I also disable indexing too and anything that I don't need at startup.

Stoner81.

mrk · 14 Apr 2011 at 15:28

I disable everything so it's as lite as XP man, cant stand the sluggishness!

Eff yeah!

I have registry tweaks to add quick access via context menus to common tasks like taking ownership of files and folders, loading device manager and so on.

Nothing that changes performance as nothing like that is needed for 7.

I've patched UXtheme and the logonui screen with my own themes but that's to beautify it over the stock blue backgrounds etc.