Tweak / Optimize Windows 7

Out of the box Windows 7 can be a hog. As a Linux user I am used to optimizing and squeezing out every last bit of horse power out of my system. On a recent laptop I had to put Windows 7 back on it (dual boot soo relax) and made this guide on what I did to trim it down and get a major speed boost

Disable User Account Control (UAC)

Click the start button. In the Search Box type UAC and press ENTER
In the UAC window, slide the slider down to 'never notify' and press OK
Reboot your PC.

Disable USB Power Management

This helps prevent power issues with devices that are powered by USB.
Open Control Panel, then click on Device Manager.
Open the Universal Serial Bus Controllers menu.
Right click on the USB Root Hub in the menu and choose Properties
Go to the Power Management tab and Uncheck the the box to 'allow the computer to turn off...'
Repeat this for each of the USB Root Hub's that show up in device manager

Enabling Write Cache and Advanced Performance for hard drives

This helps alleviate poor hard drive performance. In Device Manager open the Disk Drives menu.
For all of your hard drives, right click on the drive name and select Properties Go to the Policies tab and check the boxes to “Enable write caching” and “Turn off Windows write-cache buffer flushing”
**Note** For external hard drives, change the option from “optimize for quick removal” to “optimize for performance”

Disable Startup Items

Click the Windows Start button and in the search box, type msconfig, then press ENTER
Disable any and all unneeded software. Be careful and you should only do a few at a time...good note to go by is if you dont know what it does leave it alone

Adjust Power Options

Click on the Windows Start button and choose Control Panel
In Control Panel choose Power Options
In Power Options, choose High Performance
To the right, click Change Plan Settings
Choose “Change Advanced Power Settings”
At the top of the Advanced Settings window, change to “High Performance” in the menu.
Click OK, then Save Changes.

Disable Visual Effects

Click the Start button, and then click Control Panel. In the search box, type Performance Information and Tools, and then, in the list of results, click Performance Information and Tools
Click Adjust visual effects
Click the Visual Effects tab, click Adjust for best performance, and then click OK

Disabling Search Indexing

Right Click the “Computer” Icon in the desktop and select “Manage”.
Click “Services and Applications” in the “Computer Management” window.
Click on “Services”.
You’d see a lot of services being listed inside the window. Find “Windows Search” from the list.
Right Click on “Windows Search” from the list and choose “Properties”.
The “Windows Search Properties Window” will open up. From “Startup type” click on the drop down menu and choose “Disabled”.
Click “Apply” then “OK”

Disable Unwanted System Sounds in Windows 7

Click start, Type mmsys.cpl in RUN window, press Enter
Navigate to the “Sounds” tab.
Now from under “Sound Scheme:” select “No Sounds”, Click “Apply”, click “OK”

Change Recycle Bin Size:

Right click recycle bin, click properties
select Custom Size and choose a low amount

Disable Aero Snap (the Mouse Drag Window Arranging)

Open up your Control Panel, and then go to the Ease of Access center. From there, click on “Make the mouse easier to use”
And then remove the checkbox for “Prevent windows from being automatically arranged when moved to the edge of the screen”, and then click the Apply button

Run Disk Clean Up

Installing programs or drivers can make Windows run slowly or unpredictably. Windows maintain restore points, and use them to return your PC’s system files and programs to a time when everything works fine.
However, restore points do take up a lot of space in our hard disk. We can use disk clean up to remove restore points, but if you decide to do this you won’t be able to roll back your system.
Click start, in the search box type Disk Clean up from your start menu, select any that you feel is safe to clean up