Okay Geek Farm
How to - Make Windows 7 a lot faster
Brandon Davenport
So you have a mid-range slower PC and you just installed Windows 7 - Maybe you are a bit disappointed with the speed, but then again you kinda expected it because your PC isn’t the fastest in the world. You may have heard a lot of talk about Windows 7 being so much faster and you thought it’d breathe some new life into your system, but for some reason or another it’s just not working out the way you had hoped. Saddened, you may have even actually been tempted to buy a whole new PC just to be done with it. Well cheer up, not all hope is lost! Here’s a couple of tips and tricks to not just getting your Windows 7 machine running to proper speed, but also saving your a pretty penny while you’re at it.
So where do we go from here? - Well, this is going to be a 3 part how-to basically covering three main areas of optimization. First will be some basic and important steps to take to give Windows 7 a leg up. Next will be some optional easy configurations to add more speed, but at the risk of losing some eye-candy and maybe some un-needed functionality. Lastly, I will give you some resources for great hacking tutorials to dig down in the stuff like the registry and advanced system configuration, and optimization.
Part One
Optimizing visual elements
Disabling the Aero theme - This is the theme that gives you the shiny see-through glass effect and adds a fade effect while opening and closing windows, along with peek showing thumbnails in the taskbar previews.
How to do that
Right Click on your Desktop and select ” Personalize ” click the Window Color Tab. Uncheck the Box saying ” Enable Transparency
Your programs will no longer have transparent windows, thus using much less resources and speeding up your loading times.
Also you can use a basic theme (Still looks good)
Right Click on your Desktop and select ” Personalize ” Scroll down the selection of themes and choose “Windows 7 Basic”
Your programs will no longer have glossy windows, and programs will be much more responsive. Note: There have been some instances where I have noticed actual slow down when doing this (it was on a faster PC so it should not effect you :)
Disable advanced visual elements - Most of these aren’t even noticeable like menus fading in and out, or tool tips fading, along with shadows and font smoothing. If you are not really an eye-candy guru, make sure you disable some of this stuff.
How to do that
Right-click on the My Computer icon on Desktop and select Properties (or press WIN + Pause/Break keys) Now click on Advanced system settings link in left side pane Now click on Settings button in the Performance section
You can enable and disable a multitude of different effects and visual elements that you feel are unnecessary. If you don’t know what the heck they mean you can’t hurt anything in this one section, so don’t worry - enable and disable where you feel the need - you can change it back at any time.
Keeping your PC clean
Anti Virus and Protection - This is a 100% must for all PC users and it is critical that you have protection against viruses, malware, and spyware. The best way to do that is by installing and running Anti Virus. There are a lot to choose from, we recommend Microsoft Security Essentials, but there are many more so we picked out the very best for you to choose from.
Find them here - on T3ch H3lp
Caring for your PC - Every tech savvy person always tells you to re-install Windows every once and a while to “speed things up”. The problem is, the operating system itself doesn’t get slower, it’s all the stuff you are installing or using. Windows is just another piece of software that just happens to have the ability to run stand-alone.
Here is our guide - on how to care for your PC
Part Two
Managing Apps and Services
Managing resource intensive services - this is a big one that most people skip over, but you may want to know that there could be dozens of programs running on your PC right now that you do not need which may not know about. Not only that but they’re wasting valuable computing resources. These aren’t harmful in any way, they just slow your PC down.
How to do that
Right-click on Computer icon on Desktop and select Manage Now go to Services & Applications > Services
Here you can set any unnecessary services to Manual, so that these services don’t start automatically with Windows and you can get a faster startup. Since you set them to Manual, they can still be started if they are needed.
Making your PC start up faster - Usually when a program like Skype, iTunes, or MSN is installed it sets itself to start automatically when Windows starts. The issue with this is that it can slow down the time it takes to start up your computer every time you turn it on. And not only that but once they are started up (you can see a couple of them in your traybar next to the time) they just sit there waiting even when you aren’t actively using them, thus running in the background and chewing up your pc’s resources.
How to do that
Type msconfig in RUN or Startmenu search box and press Enter. Now go to the Startup tab and disable unwanted startup entries.
Here you can disable any un-necessary programs that start up with Windows. This will speed up your PC by a lot and improve speed overall because they are no longer running in the background.
Internet Browsing
Speeding up your browser - I have taken a little adventure around the net and have learned quite a few ways to make your browser faster. A lot of these types of tutorials are for one type of browser, but I decided to find the best of the best and make an easy-peasy guide to making your internet connection faster and optimizing your browser speed.
Continue Reading - Make every browser faster
Stuck with Internet Explorer? - If you’re using IE for any reason you are missing out. Lots of great websites are now dropping compatibility with IE including Youtube, Google apps, and Facebook. If you are in a situation where you don’t want a new browser, or you just cant install one because of your situation (such as at a place of employment) feel free to install “Chrome Frame”. It takes Internet Explorer, as is, and only changes the way it renders pages so you get the full experience.
Continue Reading - Make IE faster with Chrome Frame
Part Three
20 Free, Must-Have Apps - You just got a fresh new OS in Windows 7, eh? We here at T3ch H3lp give kudos to all who worked on it because 7 has proven to be far more than a formidable adversary to Apple’s OS X. With fast response times, and next to no hiccups or “freezing”, it makes using the PC fun again. But what about programs? Unfortunately, Microsoft is still holding the good stuff from you; i.e. Office and an actual good photo imaging editor.
Read more - T3ch H3lp
Custom Registry Fixes for Windows 7 -Although Microsoft’s new OS “Windows 7” is already very fast and reliable, here is a registry script which can tweak a few internal settings to optimize your system performance and add a few useful extras. You just need to download the ZIP file, extract it and run the file. It’ll ask for confirmation, accept it. Restart your system to take affect and you’ll definitely experience the tweaking affect. If you are worried what this registry script is going to do in your system, then here is a description of all the tweaks included in this file.
Read more - and Download the Fix
77 Tips for Windows 7 - Windows 7 is already faster, more secure and customizable when compared to older Windows versions, but if you want to get more from it you should definitely go through a huge list of 77 tips for Windows 7, which has been posted by the Microsoft TechNet blog.
Read more - TechNet blog
Top 12 Windows 7 Hacks - If you are looking for Windows 7 hacks I am sure you can finds loads of them on web. What matters is, how many of them are really important? Do you think unlocking the Taskbar in Windows 7 is something very exciting? Obviously for the majority of users it’s nothing cool. Instead, if you are interested in Windows 7 hacks that can help you to get rid of the expiry date, remove watermarks, or disable send feedback link then this article can surely help you out.
Read more - Taragana blog
15 Great tips and tricks - You have upgraded to Windows 7, love the new taskbar, and enjoy the power of using the cool Libraries feature, but now you want more; You want the cool tips and tricks that make Windows 7 fun! So here are the best ones to help you get the most out of your new OS. In this article, we will focus on the Windows 7 interface to get you started on the road to becoming a Windows 7 Power User.
Read more - MakeUseOf
Get rid of the RC and Beta expiry date and more - The first big patch for Windows 7 is out. Those who are using The Windows 7 Beta version must be aware of the expiration date, which is July 1st. Here is this patch that not only will get rid of that 6 months of expiration warning and give you a better and unlimited use of Windows 7, but also will help you to disable send feedback button and also watermark from Windows 7 desktop!
Read more - Taragana blog
Every Windows shortcut key - Windows 7 is the next version of Microsoft Windows, an operating system for both home and business. As with its previous counterparts (Windows XP, Windows ME, Windows 98, Windows 95, Vista), developers of Windows 7 have made available many shortcut keys to make our lives easier. These shortcut keys are very similar to those of Windows Vista. We’ll take a look at some of these shortcut keys after the break.
Read more - Productivity at ben61a
Summary
I really hope that this helped you get Windows 7 working in Tip Top shape and make your experience with Windows 7 more easy and faster. I put together this guide using multiple resources, which are credited throughout the article and you can find more news and info related to Windows 7 here on our blog, along with other tips and tricks.
