10 Simple Ways To Speed Up Windows 7

Everton | Jul 07, 2009 | View 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.

  • thank you for ther tip, it works wonders. alot quicker.
  • Very very good tips, i try - the best thanks
  • Mike
    Kalkstein, Use Smart Defrag, just google it. Always do a Deep Optimize then Defrag again. It doesn't only defrag, it rearranges ALL your software to easily accessible places by the head on your hard drive.

    Ubuntu (GNOME) is extremely fast if you install Ubuntu, then Xfce-desktop (Xubuntu). If you are new to installing stuff in Ubuntu, go to Application> Accessories>Terminal and type in "sudo apt-get install" then the name of your program. Install gnome-panel, which xfce4-panel replaces, and gnome-session-daemon which xfce-session manager replaces. Result is Xfce speed with Gnome features.
    Credits to gnoshme.com for that.

    GNOME/Xfce has that super-Mac feel, with amazing speed, but it is a little hard to get used to if you are a non-Mac user. Great for people that want speed or have old computers.
    KDE is pretty fast with a super-Windows feel, but is very hard to get use to for a non-windows user, even then, it is kinda hard to get used to. Good for those people with 64bit computers with 3+ GBs of RAM.
  • The configuring of msconfig>boot>advanced is a myth.. All your processors are used on start.. No change in boot times..
  • Matthew H
    Setting the number of cores/memory in advanced boot options is only there for debugging. e.g. you are having problems that you think might be hardware, you can try telling windows to boot with half the ram or 1 processor core and see if that helps. If these are left blank, windows will obviously use all available cores and memory that it can detect.

    The one about the taskbar thumbnail icons I have been fiddling with, setting very long times and very short times and I have concluded that it does nothing. Perhaps it did something in beta, but not in the final release.

    Disabling animations for maximisng/minimising, turning off aero, taking off unused startup items will increase performance at the expense of user experience, that's a choice the user will have to make but most home users won't want to disable aero, for instance, unless their computer's really struggling to cope with it.

    These are generally myths spread by the borderline windows literate and I'm suprised to see someone with a supposedly prominent windows 7 site would be fooled by such drivel.
  • Although the look of Windows 7 may seem to be nothing more than some polish applied liberally to the Vista Aero theme, make no mistake: this is a full replacement operating system, and more than just "Vista done right." From driver support to multitouch groundwork for the future, from better battery management to the most user-friendly interface Microsoft has ever had, Windows 7 is hardly half-baked
  • rover3500
    How you can say disabling visual effects makes no difference means you obviously don't know how a computer works.Disabling visual effects will always speed up things unless your computer/card is so old it doesn't support the effects in the first place.
  • Thanks for theese very usefull tricks, most of them are old, but they are still worth the shot if you are using and older system.
  • From what I've seen, Windows 7 tweaks itself. Speaking from someone who is running it on three machines, all around the 1.5 to 1.8 Ghz single core range in cpu power, one with 1 Gig of Ram, one with 756MB of RAM and another with a whopping 512MB of RAM!

    Windows 7 will run on things Vista would never dream of running on. All the systems run pretty well with the occasional 5 to 10 second pause that would be expected on the 512MB box...but hey...that's well below the minimum that Microsoft says it needs to run.
  • fogi
    Don't do it. It ruined my Windows 7 installation. It resulted a non functional WIFI and problems when switching user...
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