This is the 3rd tutorial of our "Master Tutorial" series. We have already posted 2 other tutorials for Windows XP and Windows Vista in past and now its turn of Windows 7.
Although Windows 7 is already very fast and reliable but this tutorial will help you in getting the max performance out of your system.
So without wasting any time, here we start our tutorial:
1. Registry Tweaks:
Following topic contains a few registry tweaks to optimize your system performance and add a few useful extras:
Ultimate Collection of Registry Tweaks to Speed Up Windows 7
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.
2. Right-click on Computer icon on Desktop and select Properties (or press WIN + Pause/Break keys). Now click on Advanced system settings link in left side pane (You can open it directly by giving sysdm.cpl command in RUN or start menu search box). Now click on Settings button in Performance section:
It'll open another window. Disable all unnecessary options in Visual Effects tab, you can leave following options enabled according to your requirements:
- Enable Aero Peek (If you want to use Aero Peek feature)
- Enable desktop composition (If you want to use Windows Aero theme)
- Enable transparent glass (If you want to use transparency in Windows)
- Show thumbnails instead of icons (If you want to show thumbnails in Explorer)
- Show window contents while dragging (If you want windows to show contents while moving them)
- Smooth edges of screen fonts (If you want to show smooth fonts)
- Use drop shadows for icon labels on the desktop (If you want to show shadows under desktop icon labels)
- Use visual styles on windows and buttons (If you want to use Windows Aero or Basic theme)
3. Open Windows Explorer and go to "Organize -> Folder and Search Options" and click on "View" tab.
Now disable following options:
- Display file size information in folder tips
- Hide extensions for known file types
- Show encrypted or compressed NTFS files in color
- Show pop-up description for folder and desktop items
4. Right-click on Computer icon on Desktop and select Manage (You can also open it directly by giving services.msc command in RUN or start menu search box).
Now go to Services & Applications -> Services. Here you can set a few unnecessary services to Manual, so that these services don't start automatically with Windows and you can get a faster startup.
Visit following tutorial to know which services can be set to MANUAL to increase system performance:
Windows 7 Services Configuration: Turn Off / Disable Unnecessary Services to Optimize Performance
5. Type msconfig in RUN or Startmenu search box and press Enter. Now go to Startup tab and disable unwanted startup entries. You can disable your graphics card's driver utility, Sound Card utility, etc to speed up the system startup and to increase system performance.
6. Open Sound applet in Control Panel (or type mmsys.cpl in RUN or Startmenu search box and press Enter). Now go to Sounds tab and select No Sounds from Sound Scheme section. You can keep some of your favorite sounds enabled but make sure to set Exit Windows, Windows Log off, Windows Logon and Start Navigation to (None).
Also disable "Play Windows Startup sound" option to disable the sound clip which is played at login screen.
7. Also don't forget to:
- Defrag the hard disk regularly
- Install only necessary software
- Use the latest device drivers
- Keep your Windows up-to-date
After following all the above mentioned points, you'll definitely notice major improvements in your Windows 7 performance.
This article was posted by VG in following section: Windows 7.
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Uewd
It means the image size which you are going to restore is larger than the size of partition where you want to restore the image.
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My C:\ HDD capacity is 48GB, 24GB free, System Image size: 25GB. If free space was for example, 30GB and the System Image size is 25GB, Will the system Image be restored successfully?
VG
^^ I think yes.
abney317
when you said to right click on the computer icon on the desktop I got a windows 98 flashback :p
Uewd
I deleted some old file backups from the system image using Backup and Restore in control panel. System image size became 19.5GB and Free space on C:\ became 27.8GB but it still fails restoring the image. I am storing the system image on Partition D:\ but why it fails to restore?
dani_ryder2008
Vishal, I've got a problem when I try to install programs that have the installation kit over 100 MB.
When I double-click the installer, the adress bar at the top of the Explorer window starts filling with green just like a loading bar when you install/remove something.
What could be the problem? Not enough CPU ? (1.6 GHz) or it might be because I disabled the Indexing Function?
VG
^^ It happens when your system is slow a bit and Windows tries to provide cpu resources to your current operation.
@Uewd
No idea. May be you manually deleted backups, thats why its not restoring them now. Sorry but cant help much.
Uewd
How can I delete the backups I created COMPLETELY such as System Image and File Backups?
CHOPPERGIRL
You can do all this, but if you really want to speed up your system, upgrade your RAM from 2gb to 4gb. Or even mroe. That extra 2gb makes a world of different when you open up tons and tons of webbrowser windows. Once your paging file starts getting in size close to the ram you have installed, things start to grind to a halt as your approaching that point where 50% of the time you're going to hit something in ram, and 50% of the time something out of ram, and have to page it in.
wanttobehacker
thanz!!it work to my lappy!
wanttobehacker
thanz!!it work to my lappy!