Microsoft's new operating system, Windows 7, offers significant improvement over Vista. But if you want to get the very best performance possible, you should make a few system tweaks to eliminate resource-hogging programs and features.
In this guide, I'll show you a few good ways to boost your PC's performance without upgrading your hardware.
First, one warning: A quick internet search will lead you to treasure troves of advice for making the most of your OS, but beware - many of those suggestions are fool's gold, myths inherited from Vista and XP optimisation guides that could actually do more harm than good for your Windows 7 system's performance.
The tweaks and suggestions I offer here won't transform your rusty old junker into a screaming new Porsche, but they will help you squeeze some extra speed and space out of your native Windows 7 installation.
Is my PC Windows 7 compatible?
If you intend to perform additional modifications to Windows 7 beyond the options I describe here, be sure to run a quick search for ‘Windows 7 performance myths'.
Don't be fooled by the more outlandish tweaking claims and tutorials you'll find on the internet. Investigate the changes you intend to make to your system before you do anything, or you might find yourself in an undesirable (or even irreparable) situation.
Speed up a fresh Windows 7 upgrade
When you reach the first, fresh desktop after completing a successful Windows 7 installation, you might be stunned to find your components in perfect working order.
For the most part Windows 7 is quite good about setting up drivers for networking, video, input devices, and other elements - good, that is, but not great.
To maximise your PC's performance, first hunt down and install Windows 7 drivers for all of the critical components attached to your system.
Motherboard drivers are the most important consideration, especially if your system's video and sound are integrated onto the system board.
If those components aren't integrated in your PC, add drivers for your video card and sound card to the list, followed by your input devices and any additional parts you've attached to your system in some capacity (including, but not limited to, a Wi-Fi card, any PCI-based devices, and printers).
If you're not sure what components you have, grab the free program DriverMax and use it to scan your system for components and for potential driver updates.
Can't find Windows 7 drivers for a product? Try using Windows Vista drivers instead.
If you run into trouble, try right-clicking on the executable file and left-clicking Troubleshoot Compatibility. Run through the wizard and select the option that refers to the program's running fine in an earlier version of Windows but not in Windows 7.
Select Windows Vista as the subsequent operating system, click Next through the offered prompts, and then run the installation executable again.
Finally, though it might sound odd, don't use the Windows Updater to install drivers for your machine - Microsoft is notorious for releasing old and/or incompatible drivers through this service.
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Comments
neil said: i am running windows 7 ultimate my pc is a quad core 14ghz with 8gig of ram amp a 1gig ddr2 graphics card it previously ran the hated vista ultimate which i got running perfectly now i have upgraded to windows 7 my experience score dropped from 55 to 49 windows live email crashes the gadgets stay on top of pages and have to be refreshed to remove the dreamscene has to be hacked and the removal of admin rights is complex i have only been using it for 24 hours and so far am not that impressed one good thing i have found was all the drivers installed but if i seem to recall they did with my vista now am not sure if its just me or if its a 64bit problem but 64bit software is still not up to speedflash is a good example anyway these are a few of my eraly experiences so lets hope microsoft has not rushed this out and iron out the glitches in superfast time because all the hype i think is nonsense hardly any difference to vista just appears to be a less sexy cut down version
Chris said: This article is AWESOME Cant thank you enough
Andy G said: Very Good Thanks