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How to optimise Windows 7

Tweaks to improve your new OS

Windows 7 may be faster than Vista but these tweaks will speed up the OS even further without the need to upgrade your hardware.

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.




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.



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.

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NEXT PAGE: Maintain top performance

  1. We show you a few tweaks to improve the new OS further
  2. Optimise your storage
  3. Conserve resources
  4. Maintain top performance

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