Top 10 ways to supercharge Windows 7

by Stuff.tv on Oct 28, 2009

Tags: windows7 | windows

5 Comments

Microsoft's latest OS is looking good, but there's always room for improvement. Here are our Top 10 tips for powering up Windows 7

Microsoft has worked hard to banish the nightmares of Windows Vista, and the famously tweakable Windows 7 could win back some former friends with its versatility. Here’s a quick guide to making the most of the new OS.

1. Skip the log-on screen
If you don’t want to click past the log-on screen every time you turn on you can disable it by pressing WinKey+R and typing 'control userpasswords2' in the box that appears. Now untick 'Users must enter a username and password to use this computer'.

2. Speed up your boot time
Reduce the time it takes to get up and running by typing 'msconfig' into the Start menu search bar and clicking through to the 'System configuration' screen. Now select the 'Boot' tab, click on 'Advanced options' and set the number of processors to two or four, depending on whether your CPU is dual or quad core.

3. Correct your colours
Windows 7 has a built-in tool for ensuring the colour accuracy of your photos. Click Start and type in DCCW to bring up the Display Colour Calibration Wizard, which will helpfully take you through settings for brightness, colour and contrast.

4. Fine-tune the easy way
There are tons of hidden settings in Windows that you could spend hours trawling the internet to find. Why bother? Just download EnhanceMySe7en (seriousbit.com) instead, which makes fine tuning your system easy.

5. Change your screen resolution
There’s no need to go digging into the menus to adjust your screen resolution any more. Simply right-clicking on any empty area of the desktop will bring up a menu where you can set your desired screen resolution.

6. Switch screens
Changing the display you are using to external monitor is far less fiddly in Windows 7 – all you have to do is click Win+P and chose your desired screen and away you go.

7. Install Windows Live Photo Gallery
One of the best things about Vista was its Photo Gallery, which inexplicably is an optional extra http://download.live.com in Windows 7. If you want to break free from Microsoft, Google's Picasa is just as good.

8. Minimise windows quickly
Gestures are big at the moment. Windows 7’s Aero Shake is particularly cool, allowing you to minimise all your unused windows by grabbing the title bar of the pane you want left open and shaking your mouse.

9. Extend battery life
Make the most of Windows 7 new options to save laptop juice by typing ‘Power options’ into Start and clicking the link to take you to ‘Change plan options’, where you can alter the settings to suit your needs.

10. Get protected – free
You're still going to need anti-virus protection with Windows 7, but you don't have to pay an annual sub to be safe. Just download the free version of the excellent AVG security suite (free.avg.com).

Got any more tips you'd like to share? Let us know in the comments box below.

Read the original article at stuff.tv.

5 comments in this discussion

"Yeah grobinson, all your issues can be solved by adjusting one UAC setting. Apart from that sleep issue, which is odd."

By .:Cyb3rGlitch:.

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Comments: 5

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Grayfox Oct 30, 2009 5:44 PM	Get rid of the taskbar preview(good for netbooks) Microsoft still screwed up in some spots like removing the option to disable taskbar previews but with this small reg hack you can kinda get rid of them. Open registry editor by clicking on Start & type in regedit & hit enter(Allow if UAC pops up) go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced & make a Dword & name it ExtendedUIHoverTime then add a delay value in milliseconds eg 5000 will be 5 seconds, so the preview will pop up after 5 seconds. click ok to save changes to the key & close regedit you will need to reboot or restart the explorer.exe task to see the changes set it to a high value if you don't ever want to be bothered by this Comment made about the PC Authority article: Top 10 ways to supercharge Windows 7? Microsoft's latest OS is looking good, but there's always room for improvement. Here are our Top 10 tips for powering up Windows 7 What do you think? Join the discussion.
Slatts Oct 30, 2009 8:38 PM	Hey, nice tip Grayfox. Standard disclaimer tho, back up the registry before playing with it. And hey, what the hell, a restore point wouldn't hurt either.
grobinson Dec 16, 2009 12:19 AM	Having bought a new PC with Windows 7 Home Premium installed, I was looking forward to the move from XP and all new features I'd read about. It's turned out to be a roller-coaster ride of the good, the bad, and the ugly. The good: - the Aero desktop (looks like a Mac) - Internet Explorer 8 with multiple tabs (again, looks like a Mac) - lots of personalisation, if you can find where to tweak it! The bad: - compatibility with XP as many programs have to be "run as administrator" (even if the user account has administrator privileges). Others take ages to actually shut down after being closed, holding on to files in the meantime (e.g. VLC, ProjectX). - over the top security to simply see and access all the files and folders that were easily accessible - lost the "ask me what to do" option when pressing the "sleep" button. The ugly: - "sleep mode" only works sometimes, with other regular options being blue screen of death, reset BIOS, and hanging. The "Reset BIOS" required the new PC to be returned to the shop (as I hadn't even had the time to note down the settings) where they activated the hidden administrator account which I've subsequently shut down, and all my security has been stuffed since denying access to some folders despite the onluy active user having administrator privileges. - "Do you want the following program to make changes to this computer?" EVERY time you run a legacy program - "Do you want the following program to make changes to this computer?" EVERY time you run a legacy program - "Do you want the following program to make changes to this computer?" EVERY time you run a legacy program - "Do you want the following program to make changes to this computer?" EVERY time you run a legacy program - "Do you want the following program to make changes to this computer?" EVERY time you run a legacy program - ... had enough of that? I have too! Roll on SP1.
krazikiwi Dec 28, 2009 8:35 PM	uhh, you can change the security settings so that it doesn't ask you every time...
.:Cyb3rGlitch:. Dec 29, 2009 3:41 AM	Yeah grobinson, all your issues can be solved by adjusting one UAC setting. Apart from that sleep issue, which is odd.