This is a list of suggestions that will help show you how to optimize Windows 7 by speeding up and improving it's performance.
You can pick and choose which ones you would like to do, or feel comfortable doing. If you do not notice a increase in performance or have a problem with the suggestion, then you can always go back and enable or undo the suggestion at the provided tutorial link for it.
If you have a question about one of the options, then please feel free to post a question here. We'll be happy to help.
Note
This list of suggestions will continue to be ongoing. I will be adding and updating suggestioins to this list every so often, so you may would like to check back from time to time for anything new.
Warning
Windows 7 Minimum Hardware Requirements:
1 GHz 32-bit or 64-bit processor
1 GB RAM for 32-bit Windows 7 OR 2 GB RAM for 64-bit Windows 7
16 GB available disk space 32-bit Windows 7 OR20 GB for 64-bit Windows 7
Support for DirectX 9 graphics with 128 MB memory (in order to enable Aero theme)
Installing Windows 7 onto a solid state hard drive (SSD) instead of a normal SATA or IDE hard drive will dramatically increase your computer's performance.
Make sure that you have the latest available drivers installed for all of your devices and BIOS version for your motherboard. These will often have updated that correct new bugs, bug from the previous version, and may add new features, and increase performance. Check at the device's website for them. Be sure to have the correct versions for your 32 bit or 64 bit Windows 7. If you do not have Windows 7 drivers available, then you can often times use Vista drivers instead with sometimes having to use Compatibility Mode on the driver installation file with Vista selected.
3. Install More RAM
The more you have the better your performance can be up to a point. Usually 3 GB (32-bit) or 4 GB (64-bit) will be the most that you will need though unless you do memory intensive actions such as video editing.
Better memory (RAM) performance will depend on fast the bandwidth MHZ rating (higher the better) is, and if you are using faster dual (DDR2) or tripple (DDR3) channel memory in that mode instead of just one stick in single channel mode. It's best to have all of your RAM sticks with the exact same specs.
Uncheck the visual effect options that you do not want or need, or select the Adjust for best performance option, to increase the speed. You can optimize performance by changing how menus and windows appear. The most common visual effects to uncheck are:
This option is usually the best choice for storage devices that must provide the highest possible performance and that you intend to not remove from the system frequently, such as internal hard disk drives.
Double check through your startup programs and disable or remove the ones you do not want to have start when Windows 7 starts. It is a good idea to check these every once in awhile to help make sure that some unknown program or malware has not placed itself to startup with Windows 7.
Services use processes that run in the background using part of your computer's resources. Check through your services with the help of the guide provided in this link, and stop and set to manual the services that affects features that you do not use or need to gain a tiny bit more performance. WARNING:Disabling the wrong service could hurt performance, or even cripple Windows 7. If you do not truly know what you are doing, then it's not recommended to do this.
By default Disk Defragmenter is scheduled to run in the background automatically every so often in Windows 7. Having this running in the background can cause a slight slow down and extra hard drive activity. You should either set the schedule to run at a time when you are not using the computer while it is on, or turn it off and run Disk Defragmenter manually when it is convenient for you instead.
Fragmentation makes your hard disk do extra work that can slow down your computer. This will show you how to open and use Disk Defragmenter to manually analyze and defragment your disks and drives in Windows 7. Do not do this on a SSD though.
If you do not use hibernate, then disabling it will save you a GB size file from being saved on your hard drive when you put the computer into hibernation mode.
If hard drive space is at a high premium for you, then turning System Restore off will free up some hard drive space. When disabled it will also not run in the background anymore while it creates restore points. However, disabling System Restore will mean that there will be no restore points available to go back to quickly fix Windows 7 in the event of a problem with your Windows 7 system files instead of having to reinstall Windows 7. You will need to create backups or system images if you disable System Restore instead incase you need to reinstall.
This power plan maximizes system performance and responsiveness. However, if you use a mobile PC running on battery power, then you will notice that your battery doesn't last as long when using this plan.
This will show you how to change the delay time, in milliseconds, that the mouse pointer has to stay hovered on a item before it is selected or opens a pop-up in Windows 7.
This will show you how to change the amount of time to display a list of operating systems in the Windows Boot Manager screen at boot and wait for you to select a OS to start before the default OS starts automatically. If you do not dual boot with another operating sytem on your computer, then you can uncheck, or reduce the time as low as it will go, to save on how long it takes to boot your computer.
Gadgets can be handy to offer information at a glance and provide easy access to frequently used tools from your dekstop. However, since each gadget added will take up some of your system resources. You can see how much memory is being used by the gadgets in Task Manager (Ctrl+Shift+Esc) under the Processes tab with the sidebar.exe process.
Running Disk Cleanup every so often will help find and remove unnecessary files on your hard disk to free up disk space and help your computer run faster.
This will show you how to select a user account to have Windows 7 automatically log on to at startup so that you do not have to spend time manually logging on to the user account everytime you start or restart the computer.
If you use sleep, hybrid, or hibernate mode, then you may wish to disable the option to have your computer require you to enter a password everytime you wakeup the computer.
If your computer does not run primarily off of a battery, then using sleep mode will allow you to put your computer to sleep and wake it up quickly instead of completely shutting down and starting the computer.
This will allow you to change how long notifications or messages are displayed in the Windows 7 taskbar notification area before they close automatically.
If there are a lot of thumbnails in a Windows Explorer window, then it can slow down your computer while you wait for the thumbnails to load. If this happens or you prefer icons instead of thumbnails, then disabling thumbnails will speed up how fast a Windows Explorer window will open by displaying only icons instead of thumbnails.
You can use ReadyBoost in Windows 7 with USB flash drives and flash memory cards to help speed up your computer if it is low on RAM (memory).
28. Uninstall the Bloatware Programs from Your Computer
Most computers that you buy, at a retail store (OEM), have a ton of software installed on it. Some of these can take up a lot of resources. Uninstall the programs that you do not want to use from Programs and Features.
If you are a system administrator who requires faster performance and are aware of the compatibility of the applications you are using, then disabling Program Compatibility Assistant (PCA) can be useful.
If animation effects, such as fade windows when closed visual effects, run slow or sluggish on your computer, then using Turn off all unnecessary animations can help improve your computer's performance.
31. Scan your Computer for Malware or Spyware
If your computer has been infected with spyware or malware, then this they can cause all sorts of issues including slowing your computer down to a crawl. Be sure to scan your system with a good program like MSE and Malwarebytes for malware (ex: virus) and spyware, and allow the program to remove any that may be found.
Moving the page file to a second physical hard drive instead of the same C: drive that Windows is on can help improve the performance of Windows 7. Doing this allows Windows to dump temp junk onto one drive while not having to interrupt reads or writes on the other drive. Be sure to let the page file be System Managed. Windows 7 does a great job of keeping your page file in peak condition and performance.
33.Keep your Index Enabled and Updated, or to Disable the Index
Your needs for the index, searches, and libraries will determine what will be best for you. By default the index is enabled in Windows 7. If you do a lot of searches in specific locations or for specific file types, then searching using the index with these locations and file types added to be included in the index could help give you faster search results than doing non index searches. If you find that the index search results are not accurate, then rebuilding the index will update the index for accurate search results afterwards. If you like to only do non index searches to always have accurate search results, then you could either disable the index or set your Search options to not use the index when searching in file folders for system files. Non index searches will take a bit longer to give search results. If you disable the index, then this will help your HDD not run as much while the index (if enabled) automatically updates itself in the background when your computer is idle. If you disable the index, you will also no longer be able to search within libraries.
While having your HDDs turn off after set x amount of idle minutes can help save energy, it can also cause your PC to pause while waiting for the HDD to spin back up when needed. You could either set this to never turn off the HDDs, or increase the amount of idle minutes before turning off the HDDs to avoid it being turned off while you may still use it and having to wait for it to spin back up as often.
My thoughts on your suggestions (remember this is just my personal take):
3. I find turning aero off makes the display slower since it doesnt have the hardware accelleration 4. Arent you contradicting yourself here when you suggest enable transparent glass here but disabling it in #3? 5. I think it might be prudent to copy the warning Microsoft give on that dialog box about write caching. 10. If you leave your computer on over night doing things, then one of those tasks could be defragging. So instead of turning it off, it could be rescheduled late at night 17. This is an old vista suggestion where the sidebar program was on more than off. Since it is now mostly off until you run a gadget then there is no point in disabling this feature, particularly as you may want to use a gadget in the future 18. you could also add mention of running ccleaner which is a bit more comprehensive than the included cleaner 21. Could be a security risk if you share the computer or there are other people about
System Manufacturer/Model Number self built OS Windows 7 Professional 64-bit CPU Intel E8400 3GHz Motherboard Intel DX48BT2 Memory Kingston PC3-10700H 4Gb Graphics Card XFX Radeon HD 5850 BlackEd. Sound Card Asus Xonar DG Monitor(s) Displays 2x Samsung SM-T220HD 22" Screen Resolution 1680x1050 on two monitors
Keyboard Microsoft Comfort Curve USB Mouse Razer Diamondback 3G PSU Thermaltake ToughPower 850w Case Thermaltake Armor Cooling Scythe Mugen II Hard Drives OCZ Vertex 2 120gb 3.5" (OS)
Seagate Momentus XT 500gb
Samsung F3 1Tb (games)
2x Samsung F1 1Tb Internet Speed 8128/443
3. Turning off glass transparency would not turn off Aero, just the transparency part that uses more of your GPU to do. 4. No, "Enable transparent glass" is just an option to uncheck to turn it off in Visual Effects. 5. The warnings are included and highlighted in red in the tutorial at that link to notify of the possible dangers of these options. 10. Good point. In 9 though, if that is what you meant, there is a mention to schedule it to run when the user is not using the computer. 17. True it's a bit nit picky, but the process is still running whether you use Gadgets or not. It can easily be turned back on though. 18. I thought about adding CCleaner, but I wanted to try and keep it with using only the included features of Windows 7 instead. 21. Very good point. Warning added to tutorial.
System Manufacturer/Model Number HP dv6000t CTO Entertainment Lappy |My Desktop @ Bottom OS 7 x64/ Back-Track 4 CPU Intel Core 2 Duo CPU 8300@ 2.4 Ghz Motherboard HP's Own Memory 4096 MB DDR2 Graphics Card Nvidia 8400M GS Sound Card Altec Lansing (The usual on Laptops ) Monitor(s) Displays Laptop Screen. 17' Wide. Screen Resolution 1280 x 800
Keyboard Norm. Cheap Random Keyboard Mouse Norm. Cheap Random Mouse Cooling 2 External Fans, Undervolted, Coolant Hard Drives 150 GB HDD. Other Info This is my Homemade Desktop :)
HDD: Western Digital Caviar Blue 320GB 16MB 7200RPM SATA2
And more to come in a bit! :D
3. Turning off glass transparency would not turn off Aero, just the transparency part that uses more of your GPU to do. 4. No, "Enable transparent glass" is just an option to uncheck to turn it off in Visual Effects. 5. The warnings are included and highlighted in red in the tutorial at that link to notify of the possible dangers of these options. 10. Good point. In 9 though, if that is what you meant, there is a mention to schedule it to run when the user is not using the computer. 17. True it's a bit nit picky, but the process is still running whether you use Gadgets or not. It can easily be turned back on though. 18. I thought about adding CCleaner, but I wanted to try and keep it with using only the included features of Windows 7 instead. 21. Very good point. Warning added to tutorial.
Regarding 17:
Doesn't do this here, I just closed all gadgets and sidebar.exe disappeared from the taskmanager.
Information
Note
Warning
I already most of the tweaks/ optimizations myself but i did forget to do the Write-caching on my disk drive :-) 
Quote: Originally Posted by Brink 
