Optimize Windows 7

johnhoh said:

Just want to throw out two things:

1) most people are best served by using the windows default settings everywhere possible, as it assures the best chance at a stable system. So in that vein, letting windows manage your swap file is recommended, if you are looking to keep life simple and rely on windows to handle everything.

2) About 10 years ago I got my first 8GB system and disabled the swap file, and have been running ever since on xp, vista, and 7, always with no swap file at all. Stability has always been great and have never come even close to running out of memory using either 8GB or 16GB. just saying...

Thanks for that information! I don't really notice that much of a different using two page files. I think I'll just check the box at the top to let Windows manage the page file for all of the drives and call it a day.

Just implemented a few of the suggestions and will see how it all goes. Thanks for the info

For those of us with bi-focal eye wear LOL!

03. I find turning aero off makes the display slower since it doesn't have the hardware acceleration
03. Turning off glass transparency would not turn off Aero, just the transparency part that uses more of your GPU to do.

04. Aren't you contradicting yourself here when you suggest enable transparent glass here but disabling it in #3?
04. No, "Enable transparent glass" is just an option to uncheck to turn it off in Visual Effects.

05. I think it might be prudent to copy the warning Microsoft give on that dialog box about write caching.
05. The warnings are included and highlighted in red in the tutorial at that link to notify of the possible dangers of these options.

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
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. 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
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. you could also add mention of running ccleaner which is a bit more comprehensive than the included cleaner
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. Could be a security risk if you share the computer or there are other people about
21. Very good point. Warning added to tutorial.

Thought the mods might want to know - a link here is dead. Under "32. Scan your Computer for Malware or Spyware", the MSE link is dead.