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Post by mikkh on Nov 9, 2009 2:14:55 GMT
I prefer Linux, but I don't hide my head in the sand and obviously need to know about Windows to fix other peoples PC's anyway. Tonight I busied myself with tweaking '7' to get in running on some fairly modest hardware - A Celeron 2.8 with 1.5 GB of RAM. Not that it wasn't running OK before, but I knew I could squeeze some more speed out of it by turning off some bloat I don't need. My first port of call was the excellent 'Black Viper'site to see which of the new services were not really needed and to confirm what I'd already tweaked was not too severe or dangerous. I won't go through them all, but by sticking to the safe recommendations you can trim it down to size quite easily. www.blackviper.com/Windows_7/supertweaks.htmis a good start, although switching to classic windows setting as recommended in the Aero section is a bit over zealous and too bare bones even for me, so I opted for 7 basic settings instead. I got the much neater looking (and more familiar) single line taskbar back thanks to a tip in that section too, so cheers for that BV Tweaks in place and rebooted, what do we have? That's pretty impressive, but 7 starts with a much smaller number of running processes than Vista anyway. I got a first screenshot by using the snipping tool, but I wasn't impressed it added two processes and didn't want to release them after I'd finished. I then did it the old fashioned way - using the printscreen key and 'paint' Ooh, hasn't 'paint' improved vastly - love it Just over 300 MB of RAM used means it will run quite happily on a lot of PC's out there, so well done Microsoft, this makes up for the tragedy that was Vista I'd be interested to see what a non tweaked version of 7 consumes though - anyone want to post their task manager list as above ?
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Post by ken on Nov 9, 2009 5:50:36 GMT
That looks good at 27 processes Mikk, I need to get mine down a lot. I'm running Ultimate which no one in their right mind needs and I'm thinking of cutting back to Home Premium. I've got stuff running I've never heard of before and I get a bit shaky on whether to turn them off or not. The Beast is going like a train and I'm not struggling, but I don't like to be running stuff if I don't need to. As you can see, I always use classic settings.
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Post by mikkh on Nov 9, 2009 9:35:56 GMT
I cheated a bit on mine, that was a new install with no virus checker or extra security software installed - it's also Ultimate btw and only starts with low 30's on default settings - Vista used to start on 50+
From tweaked (300 MB) to non tweaked (1.2 GB) is quite an eye opener though and shows what demands security software and 'helpful' services place on your system.
System protection, security center, search, automatic updates and UAC are all gone on my tweaked setup, but I left defender running for some reason.
Mine was the 32 bit version, which I assume has less services than the 64 bit version you use
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Post by ken on Nov 9, 2009 9:59:31 GMT
My search, system protection and Defender are all turned off. I think 64 bit might have a bit more running, but I've not run 32 bit to compare it. Even my laptop is running 64 bit, although thats Home Premium. I only installed it the other night and haven't done any tweaking to it yet.
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Post by ken on Nov 11, 2009 11:37:33 GMT
I disabled about 10 services and I'm still running 46 processes and my memory usage has gone up 1%. Its like Win7 has backed up its services, another takes over if you disable something and it costs memory to do it.
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Post by mikkh on Nov 11, 2009 12:45:59 GMT
Strange!
... and moving slightly off topic
A friend of mine recently got his upgrade DVD delivered and being a complete technophobe, guess who got volunteered to install it?
Bad news for POP email users (him unfortunately) 'Windows Mail' which replaced Outlook Express in Vista is not supported or even available in Windows 7! I presume Outlook (part of M$Office) is still OK, but it's a bit naughty to assume everyone is either using web based email or 'Office' now and has no use for POP based accounts.
I installed Thunderbird for him, but I'm surprised and shocked to see POP email users abandoned like that
He wasn't too impressed he couldn't switch to classic menu settings either, but he softened a bit when his printer was instantly installed without having to find the driver CD and I networked his computers quickly
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Post by ken on Nov 11, 2009 14:00:57 GMT
Windows Live Mail is the flavour of the month now. I don't know if it supports POP3 as I haven't installed it. I run all my POP3 accounts through MSN Premium, which allows me to use MSN Picture Mail on my POP3 accounts. It costs me 60 quid a year, but I have had excellent service for all the years I have had it. Nothing gets on my server, without being checked out on MSN first. First rule of self preservation, lead from the back. I have my SPAM filters turned up to the max and they do a fine job. I have never bothered with OE; but I have to use Outlook extensions, to open the little bit of mail that I get from them. Its still scanned by MSN before I import it. Micro$oft threatened to close OE years ago, without offering any replacement of any kind. So I suppose users should think themselves lucky they have had it this long. I think in the near future, people are going to find that more and more services are going to become paid for one way or another.
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Post by nike on Nov 11, 2009 20:59:39 GMT
Having never used OE in all the years since I started with computers, (1985) it's loss doesn't bother me one bit. I've had the same Hotmail account since 1997.
No Windows Live Mail suprises me a little though. I'll have to check that out further.
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Post by ken on Nov 11, 2009 22:56:57 GMT
They dont put Windows Mail on Kev, as Windows Live Mail is a component of Windows Live and you only install it if you want it.
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Post by nike on Nov 12, 2009 1:52:04 GMT
I t6hought as much Ken. I was sure that I had it on a previous install of W7. Must have installed it later.
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Post by ken on Nov 12, 2009 8:24:03 GMT
I think they might have included Windows Mail in BETA Kev. It was a component of Vista and didn't support HTTP mail. I know it confused the hell out of me and I think I disabled it in Windows Components. Larry explained to me, that Windows Live Mail was the one that supported POP3 and HTTP. It was a confusing time as everything was going Live and was installed with Live Installer, except Hotmail Live which was the first Live thing out. It looks like Windows Mail was an unsuccessful stop gap between OE and Windows Live Mail. Office 2007 started it all off, when they dropped Outlook. Going from XP to Win7 and having used Office 2003 which had Outlook. I didnt have a clue what was going on, still dont really.
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Post by johnnybee on Nov 12, 2009 14:34:49 GMT
Hmmmm, don't get any of that mullarkey on this rig; still using Incredimail after best part of ten years and no problems as yet. All my email addys are accessed through the one program on separate accounts, and they're configured in different colours so that I can tell at a glance which account it's come from. I keep all MSN stuff well away from my mainstream email - I treat it as a separate entity, so I don't get any hassles from spam & spurious advertising. Hope you're all OK - long time no speak to!! JB.
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