10 Simple Ways To Speed Up Windows 7

Everton | Jul 07, 2009 | Comments


Tip: Click here to Improve Windows Speed & Performance with Free Scan

The original post in my ‘10 Simple Ways’ (XP, Vista) series was written 3.5 years ago and is still the most popular post on this site.  For the last two years I’ve been running Windows 7 News, the leading site for Windows 7, so it’s time to share 10 Simple Ways To Speed Up Windows 7.

Windows 7 is fast, but you can always have more speed, right? These Windows 7 tweaks are suitable for all levels of users, but, if you’re looking for more advanced tweaks then check out the Windows 7 Forum.  Don’t have Windows 7 yet?  Then click here to pre-order and save 50%.

Faster Window Switching

Disabling the Minimise-Maximise animation can make your PC run a lot faster.  Disabling is easy:

  • Go to Start and type in ‘SystemPropertiesPerformance‘
  • Go the Visual Effects tab
  • Uncheck ‘Animate windows when minimizing and maximising‘ and click OK

Speedup Windows 7 Boot Times

Windows 7 only uses one core to boot out of the box.  By increasing the number of cores used you can decrease the boot time:

  1. Click on Start and then ‘Run’
  2. Search for Run and type ‘msconfig’
  3. Click on the tab ‘Boot’ and click on ‘Advanced options…’
  4. Check ‘Number of processors’ and enter how many your PC has (usually 2,4 or 8)
  5. Click ‘OK’ and ‘Apply’
  6. Reboot

morecores

Remove Unwanted Fonts

Fonts, especially TrueType fonts, use quite a bit of system resources. For optimal performance, trim your fonts down to just those that you need to use on a daily basis and fonts that applications may require.

  • Open Control Panel
  • Open Fonts folder
  • Move fonts you don’t need to a temporary directory (e.g. C:FONTBKUP?) just in case you need or want to bring a few of them back. The more fonts you uninstall, the more system resources you will gain.

SpeedUp Windows 7 Shutdown Time

Windows 7 shutdowns a lot faster than Vista or XP, but it can be improved further by making this registry change which reduced the time Windows waits to kill processes:

  • Click on Start and type in regedit and hit Enter
  • Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetControl
  • Right-click on WaitToKillServiceTimeOut and change and lower the value
  • The default is 12000 (12 seconds) but you can lower this to any number
  • Click ok and restart PC

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Read Related Posts

  1. 10 Simple Ways To Speed Up Windows Vista 10 Simple Ways To Speed Up Windows Vista
  2. 10 Simple Ways To Speed Up Windows XP 10 Simple Ways To Speed Up Windows XP
  3. 10 Intermediate Ways To Speed Up Windows 10 Intermediate Ways To Speed Up Windows
  4. More Ways to Speed Up Windows 7 More Ways to Speed Up Windows 7
  5. More Ways To Speed Up Windows XP More Ways To Speed Up Windows XP



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About the Author: Everton is based in London and has worked in the internet and mobile space for over ten years now, and before that worked in corporate strategy and consulting. He has a degree in Economics from Cambridge University.He also writes for Windows 7 News, Windows 8 News and One Tip A Day.

  • Vigilante
    Not a bad read, but unfortunately number 2 is not going to help at all with bootup speed.

    It's used in debugging by limiting the computer to one/two/three/four/etc cores or processors, setting it to 4 when you have 4 cores does nothing, since when it;s disabled the computer uses the maximum number of cores anyway.
  • Asgaro
    Agree with Vigilante!
  • silkmaze
    I noticed that. I just tried it and there was no discernable speedup in the boot process. I use Win 7 64bit on a Toshiba ST6822 Duo Core laptop.
  • This is simply brilliant. I'll be giving this a try ... Thanks Everton
  • nk
    “Windows 7 Aero Theme can really task PCs”
    This is not true. Aero keeps the overhead of displaying visual data to the graphics processor instead of CPU. It actually reduces CPU usage and also removes the tearing effect when moving windows.
    I only recommend disabling it if you have a slow graphics card.
  • Essentia
    Have the author truly tried these... tips?
    A lot of them seems to be just hype or myths.
    Disabling visual effects, for example, helps NOTHING in 99% of the cases.
  • john
    >>
    Windows 7 only uses one core to boot out of the box. By increasing the number of cores used you can decrease the boot time
    <<

    Thats simply NOT true. A quad core cpu does NOT have 4 unique processors but 4 cores on 1 processor. Setting the number of processors to 4 causes probably only problems.

    And I really doubt that this "tweak" speeds up Windows 7.
  • clinton
    all he did was copy and paste the services chart from blackviper's website at blackviper.com


    the author is lame! seriously, cite your sources if you are going to blatantly steal info
  • dave
    He did say this was vipers list. you twat. read before you hack !"!!
  • Kalkstein
    Thanks for the useful tips, worth trying out!
    Speaking of performance tweaks, I still don't like the Win 7 default defragger! I thought they'd improved it after the debacle with Vista's defragger, but the lack of a GUI, the slow speed and the fact that it *still* does not defrag all the fragments (analysis with other utilities shows many fragments remaining) is very disappointing.
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