Tips to Speed up Windows 7 for Free

Windows 7 is pretty scalable as an operating system (OS), meaning that it can be made to consume significantly less system resources than it usually does, making it run well on less powerful systems. Here are top 10 ways to speed up Windows 7 and give your PC a performance boost.

Speed up boot time

Make your PC boot faster than before, in this way:

1. Click on Start, and then on Run. Type “msconfig” in the box, and hit Enter.
2. Click on the tab named Boot, and then on Advanced Options
3. Check the option ‘Number of Processors’, and type the number of processors your PC has. Click Apply, and then on OK.
4. Reboot your PC. It should boot faster now.

Speed up windows 7 shutdown

Make Windows 7 shut down faster than ever before, in this way:

1. Click on Start and type regedit. Press Enter.
2. In the regedit window, navigate to the key named ‘HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control’.
3. Right click on the value ‘WaitToKillServiceTimeOut’ and click Modify. Lower the value given there.
4. Click OK. Hit F5 to reboot your PC.

Turn off search indexer Windows 7

It is perhaps the greatest bloatware that Microsoft has churned out. Here’s how you can disable it:

1. Click on Start button and type services.msc (minus the quotes).
2. In the Services window, find and right click on ‘Windows Search’.
3. In the field named Startup Type, choose the option ‘Disabled’.

Turn off System sounds

If you don’t need system sounds, turn those off to save memory. Here’s how you can do it:

1. Click on Start and type mmsys.cpl
2. Click on the tab named ‘Sounds’, and choose the option ‘No Sounds’ from the drop down menu.

Streamline Windows 7 startup

Prevent whatever programs you do not need all the time from loading automatically. Do it in this way:

1. Click on Start, and type in MSConfig.
2. In the box that opens, click on the tab named Startup.
3. Uncheck only the unwanted programs, such as Microsoft Office, Java, and iTunes. Do not disable essential services like firewall, antivirus software, and the likes.
4. Click on Apply and restart your PC.

Get faster response from taskbar thumbnails in Windows 7

Speed up the displaying of thumbnails on the taskbar in this manner:

1. Click on Start and type Regedit.
2. In the window that opens, click on the following key to expand it: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced
3. Right click on Advanced, and then select the option ‘New DWORD’. Enter the name: “ThumbnailLivePreviewHoverTime” (without quotes).
4. Right click on this new value and choose the option ‘Modify’.
5. Select the Decimal Base option and enter a new numerical value in milliseconds.
6. Click on Ok, refresh the registry by pressing F5, and reboot your PC.

Speed up window switching

Here is how you can speed up minimizing/ maximizing of windows:

1. Click on Start and type in “SystemPropertiesPerformance” (minus the quotes).
2. Click on the tab named ‘Visual Effects’.
3. Uncheck the option “Animate windows when minimizing and maximizing”. Click Ok.

Get rid of unused fonts

TrueType fonts are sparingly used unless you have a printer and print documents regularly. Remove the fonts you don’t need to free up space. Here’s how to do it:

1. Open Control Panel, and then the Fonts folder.
2. Create a temporary directory in another drive, and move the font files that you don’t usually need. As you remove fonts, you will gain system resources.

Disable Aero theme

This may make your Vista look worse, but will surely free up memory. Here’s how you can disable it:

1. Right click on your Desktop. Select Personalize, and click on the tab named ‘Window Color’.
2. Uncheck the box named ‘Enable transparency’.
3. Click on the option named ‘Open classic appearance properties for more color options’. Now choose the Standard or Basic theme option from the menu that appears.

Disable unwanted services

Some of the system services are unnecessary for the normal functioning of Windows, but still keep running in the background, and consume good amounts of RAM. In order to disable some of these, go to Control Panel. Then do the following:

1. Click on the option named Administrative Tools, and then on ‘Services’.
2. Right click on each service that you think you do not need, and click on Manual. This will ensure that you can turn it back on if you make a mistake somewhere.
3. Once you are done, close the window and reboot your PC.

That’s it. You’re done. Your PC should work a lot faster now, and also use resources more efficiently.