==== written Sept.25.2011 by JCPMA
My netbook is over a year old. It comes pre-installed with Microsoft® (MS) Windows 7 Starter®. And I must state I am pleasantly surprised with how well Windows 7 works on a netbook. Before writing this I had, for a long time, already customised and improved, performance by turning off Win7's visual "candy" (see item No. 5). How I got "caught up" recently in doing more tweaks started by my search to reduce the number of Windows "processes". This will be discussed below as well as other tweaks that I have tried and learned about from the internet.
1.) Recently I became overwhelmed with my obsession of viewing the MS Task Manager and its number of processes shortly after booting on the netbook. The processes number in the 50s to 60s! It bothered me for months. A significant number of these are start up processes. Michael Lin's Startup Control Panel 2.8 helps remove them, but not all. Some are locked and cannot be changed in real-time. So I began my web-crawl to find some solutions. It is funny that most articles about "tweaking" on the web discuss "turning off" Windows' features rather than using them to their full advantage. I guess like most people, speed and performance are more important to me than fancy appearances.
2.) Before continuing, if you are a newbies' newbie (noobs' noob), and tweaking is not really your fancy, then the best suggestion is to download a copy of Ultimate Windows Tweaker v 2.2. This version works for Windows 7 and probably for other recent varieties of Windows too. This is not a "plug" for UWT, but a personal testimonial. This small app requires no installation. Just go ahead and start using it. Take your time to review each option. Change the ones you feel comfortable about. For each "page" of the program, remember to click on "apply" at the bottom before you proceed to the next page of tweaks. I will talk more about UWT later.3.) To reduce the number of startup processes, you have to access the Windows interface "msconfig". Hit the Start button > in the search field type "msconfig" > the result will include "msconfig.exe"; click on it > go to the Startup tab > uncheck the boxes of the items you don't want to run at start-up. The beautiful part about this tweak, is that it is very easy to reverse if needed.
Notes:
*There is an Adobe®..."?sth?" process here. I discovered that it makes the Adobe pdf reader quicker to launch when you open a pdf file. If you rarely/occasionaly use pdf files, then it is ok to uncheck. If you frequently use pdfs, then you should leave it alone.
*If there are audio driver or graphic driver apps at startup you should not change them. It is ok however, to uncheck their task-tray launcher apps. This will not disable the driver, but will quicken startup because one less item will be loaded into the task-tray. I unchecked an audio driver app and had some strange behavior from my sound devices. So I had to re-checkmark the box to put it back. I had not realized that this particular app had an option to disable the task-tray icon! If possible, see if you can right click on the app itself and select the option to remove its presence in the task-tray (This may not be possible with all apps). Finally, there may be startup items in the task-tray that are beyond the skills of a newbie to remove.
*A USB DVD-drive & its supporting software had been installed previously. To my dismay, the software suite inserted 8 startup items! These processes were not task-tray items but they were easy to recognize because they belonged to the manufacturer of the DVD-drive software.
4.) Services take up resources. To get access to services, go to
Start > type "services.msc". The method of changing a service is to select the particular service, right-click on it, select Properties. There is a button to click on to STOP the service. A drop-down menu lets you choose the "startup type". The four choices are Automatic-delayed; Automatic; Disable; and Manual. Several sources from the internet mention a handful(s) of SERVICES that you can stop in order to improve performance. I reviewed Tweakhound http://www.tweakhound.com/windows7/tweaking/8.html , and BlackViper http://www.blackviper.com/Windows_7/servicecfg.htm sites and came to these decisions:
*a) Cautious note: avoid tweaks in this category if you don't know what you are doing. Altering a service also changes your netbook's functionality. It is ok to leave all services alone, even though there are many of them.
*b) It is safer to switch a startup type to "manual" than to "disable"
*c) some of your settings are already (by default) "manual" or "disabled"
*d) Active X Installer - my preference for this service is "manual"
*e) Application Experience - my preference for this service is "manual"
*f) Remote Registry - "disabled" (note, this may already have been disabled because it may pose a security risk.)
*g) Windows Time - "disabled"
*h) I left this one alone: Windows Search. It is a unique part of Windows 7 and should not be resource heavy if in normal use you elect to limit the locations Windows® offers to index. (In my situation, I never ask Windows to index any of my searches or locations.)
*i) I left this one alone: Superfetch. It seems too valuable to turn off.
5.) Disable (fancy) visual effects. This category of tweaks may be the most significant enhancers of performance because visuals require diversion of a lot of computing power. In your StartMenu > right-click on Computer > Properties > Advanced System Settings > Advanced tab > click the "Settings" button of the Performance section. Choose the radio button "Best Performance" or alternately, choose "Custom" and then select 3 or 4 features you can't live without. (Personally, I like MousePointerShadows, and SmoothEdges of ScreenFonts.)
6.) Disable Aerosnap. This feature makes your windows a different size and moves them to different locations if you happen to drag a window to the sides of the screen. It is very annoying. Fixing this probably will not speed up your netbook but will make you happier. Access: Control Panel > Ease Of Access > then click on "Make it easier to focus on tasks" > uncheck the box "Prevent windows from being automatically arranged when moved to the edge of the screen".
7.) Turn off the Windows 7 Features that you don't use. Access: Control Panel > Programs > Programs and Features > "Turn Windows Features On or Off". Here, you clear the checkmarks from the boxes of items you don't want. In my case, I unchecked some of the Games, and I unchecked the Windows Gadget Platform
8.) God-Mode is a folder of shortcuts. This aggregation of shortcuts quickly direct you to the spot where you can adjust system settings. Choose a location where you want the God-Mode folder. From what I have read, the Desktop is the recommended location. Create a new folder here and give it the following name (without the quotation marks): "GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}"
I learned about God-Mode from these sites: http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/showthread.php?63273-*-Windows-7-Ultimate-Tweaks-amp-Utilities-*&s=aa15af640cd8be455050932f34883dde
http://lifehacker.com/5439498/create-an-all+inclusive-control-panel-shortcut-in-windows-7
9.) Registry Tweaks. If you are comfortable navigating Registry Editor and altering registry keys, then consider the following tweaks.
*a) Shorten the mouse hover delay before the pop-up message appears. Access: Start > type in the search field "regedit" > open the Registry Editor. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Mouse. Right-click on the key MouseHoverTime and click Modify. Change the value (from the default 400) to 100 (milliseconds).
*b) Shorten the shutdown time, specifically the time taken to kill a service. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control. Right-click on the key WaitToKillServiceTimeout and click Modify. Change the value (from the default 12000) to 6000 (milliseconds).
*c) Shorten the menu show delay, the time it takes for a menu to activate from the instant the mouse touches it. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop. Right-click on the key MenuShowDelay and click Modify. Change the value (from the default 400) to 200 (milliseconds).
*d) Shutdown's Kill App delay, and Hung App delay. These keys exist in the earlier Windows flavor, Windows XP®, but I was unable to locate them in Windows 7's registry: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\. The keys are: "WaitToKillAppTimeout" and "HungAppTimeout". The default values are 20000 and 5000 ms respectively. I am not at a comfort level to manually creating new keys in the registry, so my work-around is to use the portable software Ultimate Windows Tweaker 2.2 to do this for me. Navigate to UWT's "System Performance" page, and move the sliders to the left until you get the desired values of 7000 for Killing App Time & 2000 for Killing Non-responding App Time. The desired values are approximately 1/3 of the default, but you can modify them if you wish.
10.) Enable Clear Type Font on your netbook. For me, since Windows XP, this is a major tweak for laptops and netbooks as they use LCD display screens. The Clear Type font feature offers such a large improvement in readability, I wonder why it doesn't come enabled by default. Access: Control Panel > Appearance > Adjust ClearType Text > put a checkmark in the box "Turn On ClearType". Follow the prompts and take a few minutes to fine-tune the settings. This is easy to do and only requires a one-time setup.
Epilogue
My netbook Startup processes have been reduced by 11! There are 2 fewer items being loaded into the task-tray. The time saved by the task-tray loading may not seem like much, but over the long term you save a big chunk of time and you are happier! Adobe (pdf) reader still works fast enough for my satisfaction; Alternate pdf readers are available if I am really picky about it though. My resource meters seem to be lighter but this is subjective. Objectively the tweaks don't appear to have a noticeable effect. I can't notice a quicker shutdown time. That is because, my netbook manufacturer has its own built-in software for managing shutdown & its pretty quick (slower than a Windows 98 old old old Pentium®2 computer, but faster than a Windows XP computer circa 2005.)! Before I wrote this my netbook Windows Experience Index was 2.3. This index is a score out of a possible 7.9 points. It is a miniature benchmarking feature which evaluates your netbook's strength. This reviews five elements: processor, memory, graphics, gaming graphics, and hard drive. Your Index is the lowest score of these five elements. After I applied the tweaks in this article, my Index sky-rocketed to 2.4. Ok so no big deal, but I am happier++ with the improved performance. To run this feature, access this: Control Panel > System and Security > System > click on the link Windows Experience Index > at the bottom of the screen click on "Run the assessment". It will take a few minutes to complete.
Here is a "plug" for a small resource meter. Try PESoft's TinyResMeter. Version 0.96 is simple to use. Version 0.97 has more "bells and whistles"
Sources
Many of the tweaks I learned about also came from reading these websites:
http://www.computingunleashed.com/speed-up-windows-7-ultimate-guide-to.html
http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/showthread.php?63273-*-Windows-7-Ultimate-Tweaks-amp-Utilities-*&s=aa15af640cd8be455050932f34883dde
http://www.askvg.com/master-tutorial-to-make-your-windows-7-super-fast
http://techtalk.pcpitstop.com/2009/05/26/windows-7-tweak-guide/
http://www.tweakhound.com/windows7/tweaking/index.html
http://www.askvg.com/windows-7-services-that-can-be-safely-set-to-manual
http://www.techradar.com/news/software/operating-systems/67-windows-7-tips-tricks-and-secrets-643861
http://www.blackviper.com/Windows_7/supertweaks.htm
Future posts
(On a previous post I wrote about system recovery options for a Windows 7 Starter netbook.) My future posts will include the topic Creating a Password Reset Disk for a Windows 7 Starter netbook.
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