Hello everyone,
I was wondering if anyone has any information regarding the optimization of Windows 7 in terms of speed and boot times. Also, if you recommend a program (if any) please explain its pros and cons.
Don't use programs for OS optimization. They don't do anything you can't do yourself and they can cause unintended behavior or even wreck your installation.
I've come to conclusion that If you have any non-ancient hardware, this optimizing OS stuff won't get you any noticeable performance increase. Don't waste your time on it. If you want fast boot times, get an SSD.
If you want fast boot times, become english and more patient, you won't notice the difference between 30 seconds and freaking 10 seconds. Just kidding. Actually no, i'm dead serious, why can you wait for a game or program to load your stuff and cant' wait a little more for poor old Windows??? In this sense, not using an antivirus and reyling on your prudence and a hardware firewall will improve boot times and the availabillity of system resources. Norton, mcafee, nod32 and avira are notorious system hogs.
A ssd would only be useful for transfering files fast, loading big progams fast, and that's about it. Boot times can be vastly improved in msconfig, in advanced boot options, by utilizing as many cores your cpu has.
Also use classic theme, and use the services menu in control pannel to disable things you don't use. This is comepletely useless if you have an abundence of memory. The classic theme does help for some applications though, Aero can be the culprit to some performance drops in a few older and even recent programs.
A ssd would only be useful for transfering files fast, loading big progams fast, and that's about it
SSD makes faster everything that has to do with OS accessing system drive. It completely eliminates a lot of short hangs that HDDs cause. Also, with SSD all programs lauch faster expept for those that launch instantly anyway. Anyway, working with an SSD is a lot more comfortable.
vastly improved in msconfig, in advanced boot options, by utilizing as many cores your cpu has.
I just did that and it made absolutely no difference. Yes, I used stopwatch.
Must've been on by default then. It did make a huge difference on a core 2 duo on windows 7 ultimate 64 bit with 8gb ram. I could boot on a single platter slim 500gb hdd in exactly 20 seconds. I checked with event viewer and most boot times were similar +-5 seconds.
In all fairness, unless you go on super unsecure sites, i don't recommend Anti-Virus. The reason why is because if you use Windows 7 or Windows 8, you can download Windows Defender. This software is surprisingly great. I know i'm probably going to see a bunch of hate towards it. I would suggest to try it out. It's a very light software, it does work pretty efficiently since it was designed by Microsoft for Windows. My computer just simply runs smoother with this instead of running something like Kaspersky, Avira, etc.
Another thing that really deteriorates performance is indexing. It actually is the most demanding protocol Windows has because it has to constantly search through your Drive for every single file.
MSConfig is going to be your best friend at optimization, make sure that your computer boots up without any unwanted software that you don't need. Also on boot, set how many cores can boot. It will speed up boot time.
I know there are more things, but those generally are the big ones that change the most.
I think there's an episode of Maks Hax Optimze W7 on TekSyndicate's channel, go check it out!
Do I need Catalyst Control Center to be on my startup programs? Does it ever need to be open at all or what?
If you are into tweaking, download Ultimate Windows Tweaker: http://www.thewindowsclub.com/ultimate-windows-tweaker-v2-a-tweak-ui-for-windows-7-vista . Kinda helpful
i actually like CCC, i use it for my profile for crossfire, but if you don't use that, then just take it off.
If you look up "Maks Haks" on youtube and find one about optimizing Windows 7, there are some good things in there that help you utilise all the cores on your CPU and stop some annoying caches, but if all else fails you should definitely get an SSD. If that is still too slow, i guess just throw it all in an oversized RAID10 array and try your luck