How to make windows 7... blazing fast !!

Windows 7 is Engineered for speed. Special attention has been given by the Windows 7 team for making Windows 7 faster than the previous operating systems. Windows 7 is much faster than Windows Vista, but even then most of us don’t get satisfied with it. There are many who still have their old PC. Installing Windows 7 on them wont be as soothing as they work with XP and Even with latest hardware’s installed some users are still avaricious  for more performance. Though we don’t make it lightning fast, we can optimize Windows 7 to the maximum possible extent and enjoy the maximum performance we could squeeze out from it. So for all the extra performance lovers, let me present you with this Ultimate Guide To Speed Up Windows 7.

I guarantee that after following this guide and implementing the recommendations on your PC, you will really get some performance gain.

The bare Minimum Requirements You need To Run Windows 7

1) 1GHz processor (32- or 64-bit)

2) 1GB of main memory

3) 16GB of available disk space

4) Support for DX9 graphics with 128MB of memory (for the Aero interface)

5) A DVD – R/W drive

Even if you don’t have the DX 9 graphics card there is no problem because our target is performance and not the ” Eyecandy ” . Of course if you need the aero experience you need a powerful graphics card for sure.

So lets start The Ultimate Guide to Speed up Windows 7

• Disabling the Search Indexing Feature in Windows 7

  1. Right Click the “Computer” Icon in the desktop and select “Manage”.
  2. Click “Services and Applications” in the “Computer Management” window.
  3. Click on “Services”.
  4. You can see a lot of services listed there. Look for “Windows Search”.
  5. Right Click on “Windows Search” from the list and choose “Properties”.
  6. The “Windows Search Properties Window” will open up. From “Startup type” click on the drop down menu and choose “Disabled”.
  7. Click “Apply” then “OK” and that’s it. The Windows 7 Search Indexing Feature is now disabled.

Most of the Windows 7 users do less searches in there system. The Search Indexing service in Windows 7 will index keeps track of the files so that they can be found quickly when asked at some other time. This feature is useful only if you perform frequent searches on your system.

For occasional file searchers the Search Indexing service in Windows 7 is a total resource hog. It unknowingly eats up your system resources. What you need from windows 7 is maximum performance from it then i would certainly recommend you to disable this resource hogging Windows 7 Search Indexing Feature.

To Disable the Search Indexing Feature in Windows 7

If you want to completely disable the search indexing feature in Windows 7 you can set the Search Indexing Service to Manual (See the above method about disabling unwanted services).

• Disable the Aero Theme on Windows 7

  • Right Click on your Desktop and select ” Personalize ” click the Window Color Tab.
  • Uncheck the Box saying ” Enable Transparency ” and then click on ” Open classic appearance properties for more color options”.
  • Then a window will open up. Apply a Standard or Basic theme from it. The Standard Windows 7 theme is more preferred.

The aero user interface certainly adds some ” Eyecandy ” to Windows 7 but certainly is a resource hog especially when, what you expect from windows 7 is more performance juice. Aero user interface squeezes your graphics or video card to its maximum. So why dont we just avoid the Windows 7 aero? if we care more about speed and performance in Windows 7. So Disabling the Aero in Windows 7 certainly adds an extra speed boost to it.

Disabling the aero theme alone in Windows 7 will really speed things up. You can know this by looking into the memory consumption when aero is turned on and off.

• Disabling the Unwanted Visual Effects in Windows 7 to Speed Up more

  1. For this right click on ” Computer” and select “Properties” from the right click menu.
  2. Click on ” Advanced System Settings ” from the left pane to open up the ” System Properties ” window.
  3. Select the “Advanced” tab from it. Then Under ” Performance ” click ” Settings “. Choose ” Custom: ” Options From it.
  4. Now un tick all the options and select only the last four options (actually three only needed; you can un tick the second option from the last four). See the screen shot if you have any doubt.
  5. Now just logoff your system and turn logon.
  

Even though we have tuned off the aero effects in Windows 7 still there are many unwanted visual effects that can be safely disabled to speed up windows 7 even more.

You will now notice the speed difference now.

• Using minimal Sound Effects

For disabling sound effects, do the following:

1. Click Start. In the search box type mmsys.cpl and press Enter
2. In the Sound window (refer figure) that appears click on Sounds tab
3. Set the Sounds scheme to ‘No Sounds‘
4. You could set only the essential sounds if needed in the Program Events, by selecting the specific event and then choosing the sound from the Sounds drop-down menu below.
5. You can as well disable the "Play Windows Startup sound" option.
6. After the settings are done, click Apply and OK. 

• Disable or make unneeded services Manual

Some processes and services, which might not really be necessary, are by default made to start automatically once the system starts up. They will consume RAM as well as the processor’s attention, slowing down other important tasks. It is best to disable them. For this, do the following:

1. Click Start. In the search box type services.msc and press Enter
2. Go to Services & Applications > Services. You’ll see the Services window (refer figure).
3. Right-click on a service that you wish to set to manual or disable. If the service is already started, Stop it first.
4. Once the service is stopped, again right-click on it and select Properties.
5. In the Startup type, you can either set the service to Manual, if you would be using it later, or Disable it, if not needed.
6. Once done, you can close the window.

• Disabling the Unwanted Start-up Services/Programs to Speed up Windows 7

Some programs are set to start during system start-up. These might slow down the start-up process. Programs that are not really needed during start-up can be disabled. For this, do the following:

1. Click Start. In the search box type msconfig and press Enter.
2. In the System Configuration window (refer figure), go to Startup.
3. Uncheck the box next to those processes that are not important for start-up. This will disable them.
4. Once you’ve disabled the processes, click Apply and OK.

 

• Disable the User account control (UAC) Feature in Windows 7

  1. From the Control Panel open the ” User Accounts and Family Safety ” > User Account.
  2. Click the User Account Control settings link.
  3. Now just Drag the Slider towards “Never Notify”.
  4. Click “OK” and Reboot your system.

The User account control (UAC) feature in Windows 7 is very annoying though it says it can protect your computer from harmful virus activity etc. But if you are a daily user of your computer this windows 7 feature will be a total nuisance to you.

To Disable and Turnoff UAC in Windows 7

Disabling UAC is for advanced users only its not recommend doing it if not.

• SetUp the Windows 7 Ready Boost Service for an Extra Speed Boost

  1. To configure the Ready Boost Feature in Windows 7 you need to have a High Speed Flash/USB or Pendrive with you which is ready boost compatible.
  2. After plugging you pendrive, open “Computer” > Right-click the on USB Drive/Pendrive > select “Ready Boost” tab > tick the “Use this device” checkbox.
  3. You can configure how much space on your USB drive/ Pendrive to be used as Ram.

The ready boost feature in Windows 7 will help you to use your flash drive or pendrive or USB drive as Ram there by improving the performance and speed of windows 7 greatly. You can certainly experience it when launching bulky applications such as Adobe Photoshop etc.

• Turn off Unused Windows 7 Features

  1. Open up ” Programs and Features ” from Control Panel.
  2. Click the ” Turn Windows features on or off ” from the left pane.
  3. Now uncheck all the Feature that you don’t use in Windows 7 and restart the system for the changes to take effect.

There are many feature in windows 7 that we often don't use. Disabling these unused features in Windows 7 will really help in speeding things up.

• Disable the Windows 7 Sidebar (Actually the Gadgets)

  1. Right click on the sidebar and select ” Properties “.
  2. On the properties windows untick the check box showing ” Start sidebar when Windows Starts “
  3. From now on windows sidebar won’t start when windows 7 start up.

Disabling the window 7 sidebar is definitely help you to to gain a few seconds during start up time. There are many useful utilities such as the RocketDock etc. which are good application launchers.

To Disable the Sidebar in Windows 7.

• Change the Power Plan To Maximum Performance

  1. Double click the ” Power Options ” in the Control panel.
  2. Click the down arrow showing ” Show Additional Plans ” to see the ” High Performance ” power plan
  3. Now just activate the ” High Performance ” plan and that’s it.
  4. You may go for the advanced settings for further tweaking if you want.

The Power settings in Windows 7 is not automatically set for maximum performance. By default the power plan in Windows 7 is set for a balanced performance with energy consumption on hardware. So you may not get the optimal performance from windows 7 if this is the case. So we need to change the power plan to High Performance Mode.

• Disable the Thumbnail Preview Feature to speed up File browsing in Windows 7

  1. Double Click on ” Computer ” >click on the “Organize” drop-down menu and select the “Folder and Search options”
  2. Under ‘Files and Folders’ section, go to the “View” tab and tick the check box showing “Always show icons, never thumbnails” checkbox.

The thumbnail preview feature in Windows 7 will show the small thumbnails of the contents of a folder instead of showing it’s icon. But this feature really do take up some system resources. So by disabling the Thumbnail Preview feature in Windows 7 the file browsing in Windows 7 explorer can be speed up.

For disabling thumbnails in Windows 7.

• Most Essential Softwares To Speed Up Windows 7

  •  Tune Up Utilities
  • Wise Registry Cleaner
  • CCleaner
  • TCP Optimizer
  • TeraCopy
  • Startup Delayer

In order to maintain your Windows 7 Performance and keep it up in Top Shape there are some very essential software’s that can help us to Speed Windows 7. I will list some of them here. You can download these utilities. But i remind you that you need to run these utilities at least once in a week. Only if you do it regularly your Windows 7 will be in top shape every day.

• Turn OFF Windows 7 Screen Saver and Wallpaper

  • Right click on desktop and choose “Personalize”.
  • Click the Screen Saver link ” From the Screen Saver drop down menu, Set it to “None” and click “Apply” and then “OK”.
  • Now click on “Desktop Background” link.
  • From the “Location” drop down menu select “Solid Colors” and pick one color and click “OK”.

In order to display the wallpaper and screen saver the system needs some memory. So by disabling those two we can save a few Mega Bytes of memory.

To Disable The Screen Saver and Wallpaper in Windows 7,

• Run a trusted Anti-Virus program

Ensure that you have a good anti-virus software loaded on your laptop/computer. This will ensure that no malware or spyware gets planted in your system. Without such protection software, there are chances of third party malware and virus being installed or stored on your system, causing harmful effects and also eating up precious space.

• Install only essential software

Ensure that you install only that software which you need. If you install any trial software and find out that you don’t really need it, uninstall and delete it immediately. Else, they might hog precious disk space, RAM and processor cycles. If you’ve installed a software, which you are unable to get rid of, and which is hampering the normal functioning of your laptop, then you might have to format your hard drive. Be aware that formatting your hard drive might wipe out all your data. Therefore it is best you take a back-up before going ahead with formatting.

• Clean up the hard drive

Remove unwanted files, like temp files, downloaded program files, recycle bin, etc. You could use Disk Cleanup option to do this, as follows:

1. Click Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Disk Cleanup
2. The system will first calculate how much space can be freed up this way. In the Disk Cleanup window (refer figure) that appears, select the files in that need to be deleted under the Files to delete list.
3. For deleting ‘System Restore‘ and ‘Shadow copy‘ files, click "Clean up system files" and then on "More Options" tab
4. Finally click OK. You’ll be prompted again before the deletion. Click Yes.

• Enable Write caching on device

This is an option which allows the OS to flush changed data to the hard disk when the system is idle, so that performance is not affected when in use. For enabling this, do the following:

1. Press Windows key and while holding it down, press Pause/Break key.
2. In the window that appears, click on Device Manager in the left hand pane.
3. In the next window that appears, expand Disk drives.
4. The drop-down list will show the hard drive. Right-click on it and select Properties.
5. Click the Policies tab in the Device Properties window (refer figure).
6. Check the box next to "Enable write caching on the device"
7. You can as well check the box next to "Turn off Windows write-cache buffer flushing on the device" and then click OK.

Note: However, there is one disadvantage in enabling these options – if there is a power outage or a system crash, data might be lost or corrupted. If you have a secondary power supply, like a UPS, you could go ahead with checking these options.

• Perform Disk De-fragmentation

When there is no sufficient space to store in a hard drive, the OS splits the file into parts and stores it in different areas on the hard drive. Defragmenting allows all these parts to be stored in contiguous memory locations. For defragmenting disk do the following:

1. Click Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Disk Defragmenter
2. In the window (refer figure) that appears, click on the drive that you want to defragment and then click Analyze disk.
3. This will estimate the time required for the process. When done click on Defragment disk.
4. Once done you can either View Report or click Close.

 That's pretty much sum up the small things that you can do, to make a big difference to your Windows 7′s performance. If you have some personal tips you’ve done yourself to improve the performances, I’d like to hear from you.