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Thread: Windows 7 Tweaks & Install Guides??

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    Laird Of The Glen jimborae's Avatar
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    Windows 7 Tweaks & Install Guides??

    So I guess over the coming days & weeks there are going to be a large numbers of us installing Windows 7. I've read some handy install & tweak guides in the past but I'm struggling to find anything decent for Win7. You know what I mean, stuff like which services to turn off, what will give good speed boosts, how to stop UAC and all that malarky.

    So if you know of any good guides or your own tricks please post in this thread.

    Cheers


    J

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    Overclocking Since 1988 nightkhaos's Avatar
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    Re: Windows 7 Tweaks & Install Guides??

    The best tip I can give you about hardware is the following: just plug it in.

    My HP Photosmart C4120 printer, my Edimax Wireless Draft-n USB Doogle, my graphics card, etc, all worked out of the box. In Vista, getting a printer to work could be a nightmare, you need to use the bundled or downloaded drivers, but in 7, I couldn't get the drivers to work, and my friend reminded me "have you tried plugging it in?"

    I plugged it in, and it worked, everything, the 5 in 1, the scanner, the printer spat out a test page. And I wasted 140MBs downloading the driver suite for my printer.

    By far the biggest improvement was network bridging however. In Vista, and XP, in order to get a laptop to bridge it's WiFi adapater with it's LAN port you needed to do annoying things like putting the Wireless Network Adapter in promicious mode. In 7, you bridge, and it works, not dropping to the command line... nothing.

    We were testing a new rig and we didn't have a spare network cable or WiFi adapter, so we used a laptop with network bridge, something we wouldn't have dreamed of with Windows 7.

    It's the thing about 7, we're so used to having non-obvious solutions. But in 7, 99% of the time, the obvious solution actually works.
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    Re: Windows 7 Tweaks & Install Guides??

    TBH the best thing you can do is.. leave it alone

    MS spent a long time optimizing it - about the only 'real' boost you'll get it sticking an SSD drive in there - pretty much anything else is snake oil.

    Oh, and leave UAC on - pretty please
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    Overclocking Since 1988 nightkhaos's Avatar
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    Re: Windows 7 Tweaks & Install Guides??

    Quote Originally Posted by dangel View Post
    Oh, and leave UAC on - pretty please
    Yeah I plan to, when I finally work out how to get Core Temp to start. Apparently I can do it with the Task Scheduler, this I shall check out. That is in fact, the only reason, full stop, why I turned off UAC on my machine.

    UAC is no longer annoying! (colon captial D)
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    Lovely chap dangel's Avatar
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    Re: Windows 7 Tweaks & Install Guides??

    Quote Originally Posted by nightkhaos View Post
    Yeah I plan to, when I finally work out how to get Core Temp to start. Apparently I can do it with the Task Scheduler, this I shall check out. That is in fact, the only reason, full stop, why I turned off UAC on my machine.

    UAC is no longer annoying! (colon captial D)
    Good stuff! Simply hit start, type task and choose task scheduler. Next, "creat basic task", run through the steps of doing it (point it at your exe, tell it when you'd like it to start e.g. "logon") and it's pretty much done. The task scheduler is a very powerful tool - you can do all sorts of funky stuff with it

    If you have any trouble let us know
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    Re: Windows 7 Tweaks & Install Guides??

    Quote Originally Posted by dangel View Post
    Good stuff! Simply hit start, type task and choose task scheduler. Next, "creat basic task", run through the steps of doing it (point it at your exe, tell it when you'd like it to start e.g. "logon") and it's pretty much done. The task scheduler is a very powerful tool - you can do all sorts of funky stuff with it

    If you have any trouble let us know
    I love the Windows Key-then type... functionality, like Spotlight, only better.

    At work we use XP, and I am forever annoyed that I can't simply press the windows key and type "Excel". Also, the quick lists with the applications on the task bar, I can't do simple things like click on the IE group and start a new window.

    7 spoils me.
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    Laird Of The Glen jimborae's Avatar
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    Re: Windows 7 Tweaks & Install Guides??

    Quote Originally Posted by dangel View Post

    Oh, and leave UAC on - pretty please
    No! well I might leave it on for few days to see how intrusive it really is but I found it myself turning it off in the beta.

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    Re: Windows 7 Tweaks & Install Guides??

    Quote Originally Posted by nightkhaos View Post
    7 spoils me.
    I know.. using XP is downright painful - you have to make allowances for all those neat little features just being.. gone..

    Quote Originally Posted by jimborae View Post
    No! well I might leave it on for few days to see how intrusive it really is but I found it myself turning it off in the beta.
    Really? That's surprising - I don't find it annoying at all as about the only time I get prompts is when installing/uninstalling by default on 7. What are you doing above and beyond that?
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    Overclocking Since 1988 nightkhaos's Avatar
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    Re: Windows 7 Tweaks & Install Guides??

    Quote Originally Posted by dangel View Post
    I know.. using XP is downright painful - you have to make allowances for all those neat little features just being.. gone..
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    Re: Windows 7 Tweaks & Install Guides??

    I quite like this idea.
    I didn't know that Custom install = clean install, and it could have included where they've hidden all the things you used to take granted. Especially for those who are moving from XP.
    A few points on useful tips like, no longer needing an additional firewall, home networking and media player I think would be worthwhile.
    A list of drivers you need to download beforehand ? (and list of those you don't)
    Links on how to move Steam. etc

    It would also, if sticky, provide somewhere for people who are having difficulties to post.
    Last edited by Phage; 21-10-2009 at 12:54 PM.
    Society's to blame,
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    Re: Windows 7 Tweaks & Install Guides??


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    Re: Windows 7 Tweaks & Install Guides??

    A wee blurb explaining this link would be helpful.
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    Re: Windows 7 Tweaks & Install Guides??

    Quote Originally Posted by nightkhaos View Post
    A wee blurb explaining this link would be helpful.
    "It's good, do it"

    But seriously....it's just a list of services you can then choose to disable if you don't need them, if you only disable the ones that you definately don't need you'll still save some memory, anything you're unsure of just leave alone.

    There are a ton of win7 tweaks out there from the RC, the best thing I've done is change the taskbar icons back to bars (like XP/et al) rather than crappy little squares which I think look stupid & are annoying and save no space whatsoever as i rarely fill my taskbar anyway!

    Rant over, I'll try to find the link for that one, Techradar has a good guide for starters.

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    Laird Of The Glen jimborae's Avatar
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    Re: Windows 7 Tweaks & Install Guides??

    Thanks for that one Vinny, I'd already seen it & thought it maybe useful and will certainly look at it again when I do the re-install.

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    Re: Windows 7 Tweaks & Install Guides??

    Quote Originally Posted by dangel View Post

    Really? That's surprising - I don't find it annoying at all as about the only time I get prompts is when installing/uninstalling by default on 7. What are you doing above and beyond that?
    To be honest I can't remember, it certainly came up less than on Vista but once I'd seen it once horrible Vista memories came flooding back and I just turned it off as a matter of course. So I'll leave for a while and see how I get on but if my blood pressure starts to rise then I'll come looking for you dangel!!

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    Re: Windows 7 Tweaks & Install Guides??

    Quote Originally Posted by Rob_B View Post
    Rant over, I'll try to find the link for that one, Techradar has a good guide for starters.
    Thanks those are both going to be really useful

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