Windows 7 – DIY Booster Kit (part 1)

Hi there,

Tick tock, tick tock, the seconds are flying by as we count down to the launch of Windows 7.

Quoted from Computerworld, June 2, 2009: “Microsoft will put Windows 7 on store shelves and computer makers will have systems ready to sell with Vista’s successor on Oct. 22, the company confirmed today. Microsoft will also offer discounted or free upgrades to Windows 7 to users who buy PCs in the months leading up to the operating system’s launch in a program dubbed “Windows Upgrade Option,” a company spokeswoman said Tuesday. “

Clinton here, with some more juicy oh so juicy thoughts in and around Windows 7.

Ok so, I was thinking that perhaps once you have the Windows 7 RC installed on an older PC arrangement there must be an improvement in the speed and movement within the OS to open applications and multitasking.
And at this point, I can say, YES! The OS makes good use of system resources. Things such as memory or drive space, CPU calculations and GPU processing. However, if you’re like me when it comes to making a machine work harder, then this post will interest you.
It is all about boosting and grinding out that lost speed and processing power hidden away from the general default system configurations.

The little extra tweaks that will push your PC further:

Hardware Boost Item 1:

From a hardware perspective, and the only significant upgrade that by far is the easiest item financially to push onto an older machine, is to see how much extra memory you can slot onto that motherboard.

Dropping those 1Gig chips perhaps and upgrading them to 2Gig chips or trying to fill all slots will improve things alot.
This may seem obvious, but remember the basics of computer engineering – Random Access Memory (RAM) provides space for your computer to read and write data to be accessed by the CPU (central processing unit). If you add more RAM to your computer, you reduce the number of times your CPU must read data from your hard disk. This usually enables your computer to work considerably faster, as RAM is many times faster than a hard disk.

WARNING:
If your PC is old, then finding RAM for it might be a tad hard, and also the sliding cost scale turns dramatically upwards. Why?

Because older memory models chipsets are harder to find and support and so they become like little pieces of gold sitting in your friendly village PC shops through-away bin. Hunt them down and install.

Hardware Boost Item 2:

Update the pc’s hardware drivers – Windows 7 does a good job of informing you that certain devices are not running on the latest drivers. Now in my previous post, How to get your company ready for Windows 7, I mentioned there a significant tool that will help you understand what devices drivers and hardware are lacking newer software drivers and incompatibilities with Windows 7. This tool, The Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor will inform you and help to alleviate 95% of all device issues in the lead up to your Windows 7 installation.

If there are STILL devices and BIOS issues after your Windows 7 installation then, first port of call is to contact vendors, visit support download sites or move some hardware items around to accommodate the issues.

From the software perspective now, there are heaps of things that you can do in Windows 7 to run faster:

Software Boost Item 1:

Start-up Devices and Programs – Go through all of your start-up programs and disable or remove the ones you do not want to start when Windows 7 activates. This will be easier task as you will be setting these start-up features per program on install. When building your SOE image these features will need to be confirmed before imaging takes place across a network.

This by the way is a critical boost for your network uses as some may have older machines together those with newer models – thus creating a variance in speeds on start-up. Moreover, it sets a standard to measure performance across the network.

Software Boost Item 2:

So now, when you’re inside the OS. You can optimize performance by changing how menus and windows appear. The most common visual effects to uncheck are:

·         Glass Transparency Effect – You can disable it without disabling Aero.

·         Animate windows when minimizing and maximizing

·         Animations in the taskbar and Start Menu

·         Fade or slide menus into view

·         Fade or slide ToolTips into view

·         Fade out menu items after clicking

·         Show shadows under windows

·         Slide open combo boxes

Software Boost Item 3:

Turn System Restore off to save hard drive space. Moreover, once this is disabled, this feature won’t run in the background creating restore points. Obviously, the downside to this is, you don’t have a fall back-point to utilise if you installed some dodge software, incompatible service pack, hotfix or device update.

Software Boost Item 4:

In the background now, behind all the bells and whistles of the OS front-end are very needed processes called Services.  These processes run in the background using part of your computer’s resources. You can check on the Microsoft site to see what services can be comfortably switched off for the time.

Software Boost Item 5:

Now these items are your generic spring clean tools – and should never be forgotten or underestimated.

·         Running Disk Cleanup – Remove unnecessary files on your hard disk to free up disk space and help your computer run faster.

·         Running defragmentation – fragmentation is a phenomenon in which storage space is used inefficiently, reducing storage capacity and in most cases performance.

·         Scheduled Runs – By default, the Disk Defragmenter is scheduled to run in the background automatically in Windows 7. You can set the timer to run when the system is not in use, or turn it off and run it manually.

Software Boost Item 6:

System Power Management – The power plan maximizes system performance and responsiveness. However, the downside for laptop users is you will notice that your battery will not last as long when using this plan.

GO NOW and download the 32bit or 64bit version (for Dual Core CPU’s).

Go to: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/download.aspx

Have a great day! J

Clinton Garbutt – Desktop Productivity Specialist
MCP, MCDST, MCTS, MCITP

DATA#3
Australia’s Integrator of the Year