Boosting Your Windows 7 Performance

This article deals with different distinctive methods to speed up your computer by making some changes to the configuration in Windows 7. You can also use these tips for computers with Windows XP, Vista etc. but in most of the cases you would not find the methods relevant. However, you can still search for a work around to make them work in your windows.
Disable Aero Snap and Aero Peek
Windows 7 comes with some wonderful and stunning visual display and effects but these features can often be the reason for the slow down. If you install new software in your computer with some older graphics card you can easily distinguish the effects. You can prevent your computer from slowing down by disabling these features. From Start Menu, go to Control Panel and then Ease of Access. First select Generate to and untick the box saying 'Prevent Windows from being automatically arranged when moved to the edge of the screen'. This will disable the Aero Snap. To disable Aero peek, right click on the taskbar, choose Attributes and untick the box saying 'Use Aero Peek to preview the desktop'.
Change Power Settings
Windows 7 comes with the default power settings to provide you a balanced power consumption and system performance. You can easily enhance the performance of your computer by maximizing the power plans. To do that, go to Power Option from Control Panel, click on Show Additional Plans and select High Performance.
Try Sleep and Hibernate
Shutting down and restarting the computer usually takes up a lot of time, you can easily avoid that by using the sleep mode. Sleep mode let you keep your computer in low power consumption mode and resume from where you left. It is really effective when you want to keep your pc turned off for a few hours. To put your PC in sleep, go to the shut down menu and select Sleep.
Sleep works when leaving the computer on for a shorter period of time but for longer period of time you can use the Hibernate option. Hibernate saves the current state of your programs in your hard drive and loads them the next time you turn your computer on. Usually Hibernation mode is deactivated by default in Windows 7. You can easily activate it by following these steps:
First enter the run menu by hitting Windows Button +R in your keyboard. Enter cmd in the dialog box and press enter. Make sure you have the administrator rights to the computer.
Then, you will see the Command Box. In the command box enter “powercfg /hibernate on” without the quotation mark and hit enter.
Now, you will be able to see the hibernate option in the power option. Go to the Power Option and select Change Plan Settings. Choose Advanced Power Settings. Select Sleep from the list and activate Hybrid Sleep. Apply and exit.
This allows hibernating your pc from the shut down menu.
Turn Off Thumbnail Preview
Windows 7 has a wonderful feature that enables you to view the inside of a folder or media via thumbnail. The feature itself is quite useful and good to look at however, it consumes ample amount of RAM. So if you are looking for improved performance you should consider turning it off. To turn it off, open a folder, select Folder and Search options from the Organize menu. Open the tab View and check the box Always show icons, never thumbnails under Files and Folders.
Clean Up Your Startup
When you boot up your computer, windows 7 loads a lot of programs by default. Most of them are useful however, you might not need some of them after starting your computer. To disable these software open Windows Defender, go to Tools and select Software Explorer. You will see the list of software that loads up in startup. Just disable the software you do not need.
Disable Sounds and Alerts
Windows 7 has wonderful set of sounds and alerts but they put up some pressure on your physical memory causing your windows to slow down. Open up sound preference from control panel and disable the sound by selecting No Sounds Sound Scheme in the Sounds Tab. Apply and exit.

Fix Different Errors
With time your computer might get cluttered for different reasons. This causes unusual problems in your computer. You can fix these errors by using different freeware error fixing software available in the internet.
Keep Your Computer Up-To-Date
Make sure your windows is up to date as it boosts the performance of your computer. Windows update installs different types of security updates and bug fixes on your computer that helps you fight against different threads. Visit the windows update site via Internet Explorer and update the important updates to make sure your computer stays up to date. Also, update your drivers periodically.
Enable the Firewall
Most of the time, the prime reason for a slowed down computer is the invasion of different types of virus. Virus is usually categorized in ad ware, spy ware and mal ware. Often these virus causes harm to your personal data such as credit card information or any other data. To prevent this kind of problem, make sure your firewall is turned on from your control panel.
Manage Your Registry
The registry of your windows is more like a library that stores the programs and information of your computer. Whenever you install a new program or open a program new information is added to the registry. With time, with frequent opening of programs the registry become disordered. An unorganized registry often results in system crash. You can clean your registry to prevent this problem.

Thanks for this post.. It's quite useful. I've been using windows vista until very recently. So this will help me maintain my new windows 7 installation a little better.

Very informative post.....some detailed information......thanks

Great tips....thanks!

You forgot a very important thing You could use a USB flash drive with the ready boost option and dedicate a 8-16GB flash drive which you can leave plugged in all the time. It will make your system a lot more faster and will help you perform regular tasks faster.

Yes Readyboost would make a lot of difference but make sure you use USB3 and you can use more then 1 USB drives for this purpose. It would make your programs load faster but once the application is launched it would do nothing. Ready boost makes frequently used applications start up faster.

For those who already have a lot of RAM on their computer it would have no effect to use readyboot. Readyboost is for those who have less then 4GB RAM.

Thanks for the tip Admin!

cleaning up startup applications is very important. It affects the startup in a very bad way.

In addition you should do following task regularly ---

1. Defragment hard disk

2. Clean Junk file and Browser History/ privacy/cookies ( not all some are useful) etc.

3. Disable unnecessary back ground services that you don't use. like "print spooler" services if you don't use printer.

4. Always use a good security solution. Keep it up to date

5. Disable auto-run feature. That a measure cause of virus infection from removable drive.

6. Don't play with your registry department until you sure what you are doing. It can harm your PC.

7. Always back up your PC before its too late.

8. Set system restore point auto.

9. Increase you virtual memory (paging File) specially for those who have less amount RAM installed -Maximum 3 times of your RAM size.

Unfortunately i am not going to tell you how to do above task. Its become a very lengthy post and assuming you are enough smart to do this by yourself. Otherwise its Google your best teacher . There are many freeware software you can use. Not sure it is allowed to post the link of software. so i didn't.

virus comes mostly from internet so just use it carefully! i dint scanned my pc for last 6 months and thn also it works awoso0me!

Rishabh you should set your security to auto scan rather then doing it manually after so long. It is not just your data at risk when you leave your doors open but you also risk your computer being used as a source of spam without even knowing for a long time until it becomes extremely annoying having to wait too long for every command to execute when the amount of spam going out becomes huge. I have seen a computer being used to send email without the knowledge of the owner remotely.

I do set it, but it sometimes make me lag on FPS or any other multiplayer but for the rest of the things its better to set security to auto scan as its too annoying to scan it manually ;P

for my slow computer this is what i do

1. Disable all unwanted services (aero theme, themes, shell hard decetion, etc)
2. Never use any antivirus
3. Use CC cleaner to clean your Registry and do it every gap of 6 month
4. Defragment your hard disk
5. Use screensaver and moniter power of to protect your pc

I would not keep a my pc 24hours on unless your downloading

I wont advise running a PC without antivirus especially when you have important data in your computer.

Originally Posted by ad12

for my slow computer this is what i do
2. Never use any antivirus

WHY? U dint do the best thing that u should have done is to simply use an antivirus.

Originally Posted by Admin

I wont advise running a PC without antivirus especially when you have important data in your computer.

I agree with admin. Computer users do not want to pay for Internet Security. But then NPAV Internet Security costs just Rs500 annually. If Rs500 is too much then download and install NaMo antivirus which is being provided for free for ever with free updates by homegrown IT firm Innovazion.

Why do people keep advising Antivirus on a windows7 1gb ram old celeron pc that is just used for downloading?

Antivirus Pros
Protects your data from being stolen
Block Virus Programs

Antivirus downfall
Uses System disk I/O and Cpu which slow down your pc

Without antivirus i save resources i do not like being slowed down by antivirus. Antivirus is not needed for expert, gaming, users like me but for office work with import documents then it will be needed

Originally Posted by ad12

for my slow computer this is what i do

1. Disable all unwanted services (aero theme, themes, shell hard decetion, etc)
2. Never use any antivirus
3. Use CC cleaner to clean your Registry and do it every gap of 6 month
4. Defragment your hard disk
5. Use screensaver and moniter power of to protect your pc

I would not keep a my pc 24hours on unless your downloading

There still is a risk of virus, especially when browsing the web or if you tend to get lots of emails from unknown people.

For fast Startup/Shutdown upgrade to SSD Disk.

I always use "Hibernate" option for fast startup but on my New PC(Normal HDD), shutdown time is very slow so I use Force Kill App on shutdown option like "WaitToKillApp" and "WaitToKillServiceTimeout" in Regedit.

(HKML\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\WaitToKillServiceTi meout - change value from 20000 (20 second) to 7000 (7second)

I guess this one can help me boost my windows seven. With this one I can make my windows seven run faster and smoother. I would like to add that if you want to make your windows seven run the way you want it to run, make sure that you disable all the running applications in the background. The one that you do not use. Processes or applications that run in the background make the computer run slow.