For the most part Win7 Optimization process is pretty close to XP, how ever some of the
Services that you could turn off in XP if turned off in Windows Seven will have side
effects, some of them will cause the OS to not restart. I will cover those in
the Services tutorial.
Other than some of the options being buried deeper and
named differently optimizing is fairly easy and if you mess it up you can put it
back to default.
So you have restarted after the install and here is the first screen, this is
a standalone system, that is it is not in a domain. (Note: These images
are from the 120 day evaluation copy of 2009)
Then the OS builds your desktop, after the install the desktop that you saw
was the Administrator's desktop.
The standard desktop, no modifications.
Windows 7 Optimization - Setting the desktop to a solid color and setting the desktop icons.
The next thing you can do is turn off some of the options such as 'Hide
notification area', set the task bar to the bottom of the screen.
Be careful when turning off items on the stat menu, I lost the 'All
Programs' the first time I turned off 'Default Programs' under the
customize button. (These tips and techniques are from
the Windows 7 Ultimate Guide.)
If you are tired of the pop up asking if it is ok to change desktop
items or
install software then you can turn it off until you are done. This is called the
UAC (User Access Control) to a lower setting until you complete you setup. It is
under the 'Getting Started' menu and the label is 'Change UAC Settings'
You can set the strength of 'Always Notify me;.
Down to 'Never notify me'
And because the setting is being changed you have to authorize the change. :)
Now you can change what is on the Start Menu from how 'My Computer' to 'My
Music' is displayed or not displayed. These controls are for display of the
current logged on user. It does not remove the items from the directories.
In the VM the mouse drags, it is slow so I had to increase the acceleration.
To get the System Properties you can either right click on My Computer or use
the control panel, such as here.
To cut down on the system memory usage I always turn off all the Visual
effects.
Then set the Paging or Swap file.
I try to move the swap file to another drive, in this case there is only the
system drive, when I add another drive to the VM then I will move the swap file
to that drive.
Lets say you were, ummmm, over zealous in your optimization or turned off
something that causes the computer to crash.
Pressing F6 or F8 at start up gets you to this next screen. You can use the 'Ramdisk options' to reset the Operating system to the
default settings, this is the recovery console. To get to the Memory Diagnostics
press the 'tab' button. Then you can test the memory in your computer.
To get to the menu for the System Recovery, with Windows 7 highlighted press
F8 then select 'Repair Your Computer' this is misleading because it is for
repairing your Operating System,
The first screen, select your keyboard method.
Your user id has to have Administrator Rights to log on.
You will also find more Windows 7 Optimization in the
The options -
- Startup Repair
- System Restore
- System Image Recovery
- Window Memory Diagnostic
- Command Prompt
This is a vast improvement over the old command prompt recovery console, you
don't have to learn MS command syntax! Nice, not as good as the ERD Commander
but better than the old Recovery Console!
Oppps, looks as if my evaluation of the 120 day version of Windows 7 was a
little bit off. It looks as if Windows 7 is turning in to a Vista on steroids,
and Windows 8 isn't looking any better. The bad news is support for XP will be
ending in 2014... has ended, same for windows 7, windows 8/8.1 by end
of 2021...
When you do your customization you may have to change or fix something you
did wrong, do you have an ERD? The image and paragraph above is about the
Microsoft ERD, however you can have more tools if you make a custom Emergency Repair Disk (ERD) for yourself? Check this out.
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