Optimize Your Windows 7

Pushing Your Performance

To create a faster Windows 7 experience, start by modifying the amount of time that mouse-over boxes and clicked menus take to appear. Click on the Windows Start button and type regedit into the 'Search programs and files' box. Welcome to the Windows 7 Registry. Don't touch or modify anything without good reason. Left click on the expandable arrow next to HKEY_CURRENT_USER. Expand the Control Panel folder, and then click directly on Desktop in the hierarchy. In the right pane, look for and double click MenuShowDelay. Change the value from 400 to any lesser number that's 1 or greater. This figure represents the milliseconds of delay between your click and a menu's display. Restart the computer to apply the changes immediately, or continue to the next tweak.

See the folder labeled Mouse (below Desktop)? Click that, and then search for and select the MouseHoverTime Registry key. Just as before, change this value to any lesser number that's 1 or greater. Close the Registry Editor, restart the computer, and you'll have faster mouseovers.

If you're willing to sacrifice looks for speed, you can modify the visual settings of the Windows 7 interface to emphasise performance over presentation. Go back to the System section of Control Panel and click on Advanced System Settings again. On the System Properties window that appears, choose the Advanced tab and then click on the Settings box underneath the Performance category. The Performance Options window will pop up. There, you'll see a list of checked boxes that correspond to all of the window dressing in the operating system.

If you don't mind transforming your OS into a clone of Windows 2000, click the button that tells Windows to adjust its visual settings for best performance. It's a harsh step to take, though. If you'd prefer a piecemeal approach, uncheck only the boxes that relate to Windows Aero (such as Aero peek and transparent glass). You'll retain a semblance of a pretty desktop while still improving performance a teeny bit.

Conserve Resources

Once you've installed a fair amount of programs on your PC, your "core base" of apps as it were, you'll want to check that your system doesn't have any unwanted applications running in the background that could otherwise impede the machine's general performance. These programs launch themselves during the operating system's startup process, and are often designed to help you load their corresponding applications faster. The problem is that they run every time, regardless of whether you intend to use the application during a given session.

Click Start and type msconfig into the 'Search programs and files' field. Press Enter. In the System Configuration window that appears, select the Startup tab. Move your mouse between the headers of the Manufacturer and Command columns, and shrink the Manufacturer column down. The Command column is the one you care about.

A number of the startup applications that launch on your machine sit in the background, consuming resources. For example, take iTunes: If you've installed this application, you'll find iTunes and QuickTime listings in the Startup tab. Both iTunesHelper.exe and QTTask.exe are unnecessary additions to your system, the former launches when you start iTunes anyway, and the latter places a QuickTime icon in the corner of your system for easy program launching. Uncheck them both.

As for the other programs on your list, try running a quick web search of each application's executable file name to find out if the program is worth keeping or removing. Once you've checked the programs you want to launch at startup and unchecked the programs you don't, click OK.

In addition to startup programs, you'll find services on your PC. Microsoft recommends trimming both to squeeze the most performance out of your system. For the services, click Start, type services.msc into the search field, and press Enter. Up pops the Services window, a list of options and executables that's even more confusing than the startup window.

You can't identify which services to turn off (and which to leave on) without taking a close look at how each one affects your system's overall performance. Thankfully, someone has been doing that exact task since Windows XP: Charles Sparks, under the alias Black Viper, has listed every single permutation of Windows 7's services across all of its versions, along with a "safe" and "tweaked" list of which services you should modify and how you should set their parameters.

To follow his advice, just double click on any listed service. You need concern yourself only with the 'Startup type' listing in the screen that appears next. By switching among the Automatic, Manual, and Disabled modes, depending on his recommendations, you'll be able to control exactly how services launch, if at all, during the Windows startup process and during your general use of the operating system. Every little bit helps.