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Windows 7 Sales Surpass Vista's by 234%

Pulkit Chandna — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 08:51:27 -0600

Microsoft is wallowing in the success of Windows 7. It is difficult to ignore the itch to compare Windows 7 with its predecessor. The Redmond-based software behemoth seems to be relieved that Windows 7 has managed to dodge the fate of Windows Vista. Windows Team Blog blogger Brandon Le Blanc could barely hide his excitement when reporting NPD group's assessment of the initial response to Windows 7.

"It has been quite amazing to watch the global excitement build around Windows 7, especially during a tough economic climate. It was just a few short weeks ago that we learned about Windows 7 outselling the UK's "own" Harry Potter. In Japan, anxious PC users waited in line to be one of the first to get their hands on Windows 7," a clearly ecstatic Le Blanc wrote on the official Windows Team Blog.

According to NPD's weekly tracking service, Windows 7 software unit sales in the US surpassed VIstas by 234 percent during the first few days. However, revenue generated by Windows 7 sales was only 82 percent higher than Vista's during the tracking period. NPD imputed the rather lackluster revenue growth to the discounts offered on pre-sales and Microsoft's failure to plug the Ultimate version in a manner its due. Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade with an average selling price of $76 was the top-selling Windows 7 SKU during the week ending October 24, 2009.

29 Essential Windows Tips for XP, Vista, and Win7 Users

The Maximum PC Staff — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 13:30:00 -0500

Make your OS better with these outstanding tips, tricks, and hacks that improve XP, Vista, and even Windows 7

By now, many of you will have a fresh copy of Windows 7 in your hands, ready to load up onto your PC (we show you the right way to do it). But while that stock Windows install may be OK for your mom, but is it good enough for you? Never! You deserve a Windows that soars above the clouds, swift and strong. That’s why we collected our team of Windows experts and spent countless hours mucking around in the registry, downloading little-known tools, and searching for new keyboard shortcuts to bring you this, our finest Windows tips guide of all time.

Dig it: we give you the definitive list of kick-ass, Maximum PC–approved tips and tweaks for Windows, whether you run XP, Vista, or Windows 7. While some are specific to Microsoft’s latest OS (you’ve upgraded, right?), many will work on XP and Vista, as well. So sit back, relax, and get ready to make Windows better.

Windows 7 Secrets Unveiled! As good as it is, Windows 7 can be made even better with these nifty tricks

Order Windows 7 to Generate an Energy Report

Windows 7 adds functionality to powercfg.exe to help you better analyze power consumption issues on your PC. To create a report, spawn a command-line box with administrator privileges. To do this, press the Windows key, and type cmd in the search box. Right-click on cmd and select Run as Administrator. Now select the box and type powercfg -energy. Powercfg will run for about 60 seconds, then generate a report called energy-report.html in C:\Windows\system32. This report will notify you of anything in your computer that is keeping the CPU turning, which in turn means burning more power and sucking down more battery life.

For example, if you want to save power, don’t run Sidebar gadgets. From the runs we’ve tested, most of the problems are due to USB devices that don’t properly support or shut-off to save power. While you might think the power consumption of a USB doohickey is pretty insignificant, if it prevents the CPU or south bridge from switching off, a trickle of power can add up to a significant hit where it hurts—your battery life. The energy report won’t fix the problem, but it’s a great tool to help you get started.

Supercharge Your PC with HomeGroups

HomeGroups make it really easy to share files and printers between your computers, but unfortunately you can only connect to a HomeGroup if you’re using Windows 7. Set up your HomeGroup in the networking control panel, then your music, photos, video, and documents will all be shared with other machines in the HomeGroup. If you want to share individual files you can by right-clicking them, and choosing the appropriate option from the Share With menu.

Launch Apps By Dragging Files to the Taskbar

We’ve already talked about pinning frequently used files to the Taskbar, but what if you want to open a file in a particular application by drag-and-dropping it in on the Taskbar icon OS X–style? All you need to do is hold down Shift when you drop the file on the Taskbar icon. You can even open files with applications that aren’t associated with that particular file type using this trick!

Using Libraries like a Pro

Libraries are virtual folders that let you collect similar files in one handy location. Windows 7 ships with several default Libraries for music, photos, and documents, but you can supercharge them by adding additional files and directories. For example, we add commonly used network shares to the documents Library. The machine hosting the share will need to have Windows Desktop Search 4.0 or higher running on it, or you’ll need to right-click on the folder you want to add and select Always Available Offline.

Harness the Power of the Jump List

Jump lists are another new Windows 7 feature. You can use them to keep shortcuts to commonly used files—not apps—easily accessible, one click away from the shortcut you use to launch the app. To add a file to a Jump List, all you need to do is drag it onto the appropriate app’s Taskbar icon. To access the Jump Lists you can right-click any Taskbar shortcut, once you (or the app) has added items.

Use Keyboard Shortcuts to Launch Apps

With the new Windows 7 Taskbar comes a whole host of new keyboard shortcuts. You’ve probably heard of the Windows key + 1–0 shortcuts, which launch the apps on your taskbar (if they’re closed) or bring them to focus (if they’re running), but there are some other kick-ass hotkeys as well. Win+T cycles through all the Taskbar apps. Win+Shift+right arrow and Win+Shift+left arrow let you move the currently focused window from monitor to monitor. Finally, Win+Space gives you a quick look at the Desktop.

Three Reasons Why Mouse Gestures are Your Friend

We love having the option to activate core UI tasks using mouse gestures in Firefox, and now Window 7 adds a handful of gestures for window management. Grab a window and drag it to the top of the screen to maximize it, drag it to either side to make it fill half the screen, or shake the window to minimize everything else. Finally, you can access an application’s Jump List by clicking on its Taskbar icon and dragging up. That’s just dandy!

Easily Check Your PC for Windows XP Mode Support

Don’t know if your PC has what it takes to support Win7’s Windows XP mode? Besides needing Win7 Pro, Ultimate, or Enterprise, you’ll also need a CPU with hardware virtualization support. To query your system, download Steve Gibson’s free utility Securable. Once you’ve downloaded it, fire it up and it will tell you if your CPU supports 64-bit or not, if hardware DEP is supported, and if hardware virtualization is in the proc.

Access the True Power of the Windows 7 Calculator

With Windows 7, a couple of the old staples like Paint, Notepad, and Calculator have gotten a graphical facelift. With the calculator, though, the improvements go beyond skin deep. In addition to the standard arithmetic calculator, Windows 7 brings Statistics, Scientific, and Programmer modes to the calculator, along with specialized functions for calculating fuel economy, leases, and even your mortgage. Does the calculator still look like it always did to you? Check out the View menu—that’s where all the goodies are hidden.

Add Websites to Native Windows Search

New to Windows 7 is Search Federation, which allows Windows 7 to add remote sources of documents (such as Flickr or YouTube) to Windows’ native search interface. Simply find an .odsx “connector” file for a service you want to search (Google “Windows 7 Flickr search connector,” for instance), download and run it. The search will be added to your User > Searches directory.

Make ISO Burning Simple and Fast

With Windows 7, Microsoft finally introduces native support for burning disc images. Just right-click an ISO file and select Burn Disc Image to bring up the Windows Disc Image Burner. It’s pretty bare-bones, but how much chrome do you really need here?

Mount Virtual Hard Drives with Ease

Got virtual machines? Now you can mount your virtual hard drive (.vhd file) and access it via Explorer just like you would any other drive, so you can pull data from it, or even transfer it easily between computers. Create, attach, and format VHDs from Disk Management. Just go to Disk Management, click a disk, and go to the Action menu, where you can create a new VHD or mount one from hard drive.

Easily Switch Between Displays with Win+P

Connecting your laptop to a projector or external monitor has never been easier. Just hook up the device to your computer, and hit Win+P. This brings up a display menu: You can choose to show your desktop on either the computer or the projector, duplicate your desktop on both, or extend it to the external monitor. It’s perfect for playing movies or giving that all-important PowerPoint at work.

Calibrate your Screen with Display Color Wizard

Whether you’re using a wall projector or small LCD, we recommend running the Display Color Calibration tool to optimize Windows 7’s color rendering. Launch the app by typing dccw in the Start Menu. The wizard will run you through a series of steps where you can adjust the gamma, brightness, contrast, and color of the screen to make images look their best.

Change Windows Explorer’s Default Launch Folder

By default, launching Windows Explorer (the shortcut for which is Win+E) takes you to the Libraries directory, but you may be more comfortable with My Computer as the starting node, especially if you want to browse multiple hard drives or network drives. To change the launch folder, access Windows Explorer by typing explorer in the Start Menu search field, right-clicking the first result, and selecting Properties. Under the Shortcut tab, change the Target field to %SystemRoot%\explorer.exe /root,::{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}

Create a Wallpaper Slideshow from RSS

Windows 7 supports creating wallpaper slide shows via RSS, but it’s hardly simple. Go to C:\Windows\
Resources\Themes and make a copy of one of the themes (we picked aero.theme) to your Desktop. Open it in Notepad and add the following code to the file:

[slideshow]
Interval=1800000
Shuffle=1
RssFeed=(your RSS feed goes here)

Then save it, and double-click to install your theme. Only RSS feeds that include images as enclosure items will work.

Search the Internet from the Start Menu

The search prompt in the Start Menu normally finds files only on your computer, but you can enable it to launch your default browser to search the Internet. Open the Group Policy Editor by running gpedit.msc in the Start Menu. Go to User Configuration/Administrative Templates/Start Menu and Taskbar. Right-click the “Add Search Internet link to Start Menu” setting and set it to Enable. Unfortunately, this works only on versions of Windows that include the Group Policy Editor, so Home Premium users are out of luck.

Bring Back the Vista-Style Taskbar

If you prefer Vista’s Taskbar to Windows 7’s, you can bring it back. Right-click the Taskbar and select Properties. Check the “Use small icons” box and select the “Combine when taskbar is full” option under the Taskbar Buttons drop menu. Launched programs will now display their full names in the Taskbar, and multiple instances of a program won’t group into one icon until the Taskbar is full. You can also bring back the Quick Launch toolbar by adding a new toolbar with the following string: %userprofile%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch

Don't have Windows 7? Never fear, we've got a boatload of tips for XP and Vista users. Psst, most work in Win7, too!

Search Network Shares

Searching network shares is easy, if you have access to the machine that’s hosting those shares. Installing Windows Desktop Search 4.0 on a Windows machine that supports it will make any shares hosted on that machine searchable by the user. That applies to XP, Vista, and Home Server. If you want to search non-Windows network shares, you’ll need to install a third-party tool, such as Copernic Desktop Search Professional ($50, www.copernic.com).

Open a Command Line in Any Folder

The days of typing long folder addresses in Command Prompt are over, at least if you run Vista or Windows 7. Rather than opening a command prompt and typing cd Desktop\Cat Pictures\Cats on a Skateboard\Two Cats One Skateboard\, just Shift+right-click to add “open command line here” to your right-click context menu.

'Run As' a Different User

This tip is a little bit of a cheat, since it’s not something totally new to Windows 7, but actually a feature that existed in Windows XP, was removed in Vista, then reintroduced in Microsoft’s latest OS. To run a program as a different user, with access to that user’s settings and documents, hold shift and right-click an executable, then choose Run as Different User.

Make 64-bit Windows Handle PDF Previews Properly

PDF previews have been a perennial hassle to get working properly in 64-bit Windows, but luckily, it’s easy to fix that. Open Regedit and go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Classes\CLSID\{DC6EFB56-9CFA-464D-8880-44885D7DC193}, where you should see an existing AppID value. Change that to {534A1E02-D58F-44f0-B58B-36CBED287C7C} and reboot. Then Windows (and Outlook) will properly display PDF previews.

Make 64-bit Windows Show Photoshop Previews

On the subject of proper preview-handling, files associated with Photoshop typically don’t show up in 64-bit Windows. We’re talking about PSDs, TIFFs, and TGAs, for the most part, but there are some other, even more esoteric formats that are omitted by default. Luckily, there’s a little utility called MysticThumbs (donateware, http://mysticcoder.net/MysticThumbs/) that fixes the problem. Install it, reboot, and bask in the glory of the thumbnail preview revolution.

Run Programs as an Administrator

In Windows XP and later, some operations—such as those that change core system or user account settings—can only be performed by the Administrator account. However, it’s bad form to run using the Administrator account all the time. You can use the Run as Administrator function to get the privileges you need, when you need them, without constantly switching user accounts. In Windows XP, right-click a program and choose Run As. In Vista or 7 just right-click an executable and choose Run as Administrator.

Use Shadow Explorer to Save Your Bacon

The low-rent versions of Vista don’t allow you to go back in time for older versions of files the way Ultimate does. Fortunately, although Microsoft disabled your access to the shadow copy feature, it didn’t actually remove it. The OS is always secretly making backups, you just can’t access them. To get around this, use the free Shadow Explorer from Shadowexplorer.com to reach back in time for that tax return from two months ago.

Make Windows Keep Custom Folder View Settings

Windows will often assume certain folders contain photos or music—even if they don’t—and change your folder view options. You can overwrite Windows’ view preferences by setting a custom default view. Open any folder containing files, access the Properties menu, and head to the Customize tab. Under folder templates, select Documents to change back to the default view. Next, right-click within the folder again and change the View option to Details. You can add, remove, or change the order of the Details categories shown by right-clicking the category labels and choosing the More… option. Once you have a Details setting to your liking, make this the standard view for all folders by going to the Folder Options menu under Tools, the View tab, and then clicking Apply to All Folders.

Master Your File System with Symbolic Links

Symbolic links allow you create a sort of “super shortcut”—a folder that exists in two places in the file system at once. Why is this useful? Because it means the file system is finally totally under your control. A game doesn’t let you choose where you store save files? Replace the default directory with a symbolic link to whatever location you want. Learn how to set up symbolic links, and how to use them with Dropbox to take all your apps online by clicking here.

Create a Custom Keyboard Shortcut to Launch Any Program

To avoid cluttering up your Desktop with shortcut icons, you can assign unique keyboard shortcuts to any application (or even document). First, you’ll need to create a normal shortcut to your target program if one doesn’t exist already. Right-click the executable and click Create Shortcut. Next, right-click the new shortcut file and select Properties. Type your desired keyboard shortcut in the Shortcut key field. The keyboard shortcut has to either be prefaced with “Ctrl+Alt” or you can assign it to a key on the numpad. This shortcut will work on your Desktop, while you’re in Windows Explorer, and even if you’re in other programs.

Use msconfig to See What's Running on Your PC

One of the handiest tools for keeping your computer booting and running smoothly is the System Configuration client. With it, you can view and edit the list of programs and services that start with your computer (including the hidden ones), as well as access a list of useful tools for administering your system. You can find it three layers deep in the control panel, or you can open the Run dialogue and type msconfig.

Supercharge Windows Media Player with FFDShow Tryouts

While some editions of Windows 7 come preinstalled with Divx and H.264 video codecs, Vista and XP users who use Windows Media Player are stuck with limited playback support. To play more than just WMV-encoded files, download FFDShow Tryouts (http://ffdshow-tryout.sourceforge.net/), an all-inclusive DirectShow filter that plays an expansive range of video and audio codecs, along with robust configuration options.

Got a tip you didn't see here? Share it with us in the comments section below!

25 Most Popular Windows Tips: The Best Explained and Worst Debunked

Christopher Null — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 14:15:00 -0500

Since the dawn of Windows, power-user tipsters (us included) have proffered hundreds of suggestions with the promise of improving your PC’s performance or streamlining its operation. The tip-givers have the best of intentions, but do all of those tweaks, registry hacks, utilities, and “undocumented secrets” really make any difference? To our surprise, in a number of cases, it turns out that tips that sound great on the surface don’t actually do anything when you put the screws to them. And some of those complicated registry hacks are more easily done with tools like TweakUI, saving you a lot of hassle.

We put 25 of the most commonly published XP and Vista performance tips and registry hacks to the test. Do the speed tweaks yield dividends? We clocked performance with PCMark and timed boots and shutdowns repeatedly after making the changes suggested in the tips. In the end, we found that many tips were right on the money, but some were outright wrong or just a waste of time. Some tips fell into the gray area in between, offering some improvement but perhaps not enough to merit the trouble of the hack to begin with.

XP Tips

Disabling XP’s Indexing Service Can Improve Performance:TRUE

You can almost ignore the question of whether XP’s Indexing Service slows down your computer. The fact is it doesn’t do much good anyway. Indexing is supposed to help Windows keep better tabs on files, but it does a terrible job of it and offers the user no options for configuring what gets indexed. It’s almost beside the point that it can slow your system—sometimes only a little and sometimes to an outright crawl. Even Microsoft acknowledges that the Indexing Service can cause hard drives to thrash and that it “uses lots of pagefile space and lots of CPU time”—in fact, Microsoft often recommends disabling it. Note, however, that Vista’s integrated search and indexing system is considerably improved.

There are several ways to turn off XP’s Indexing Service. The most thorough is to open the Control Panel, open Administrative Tools, then open Services. Scroll down to Indexing Service and double-click it. Change the Startup type to “Disabled.”

Change Your Default "View Source" Application With A Registry Hack: TRUE

Viewing web-page source files in Notepad is hardly a user-friendly experience. You can hack the registry to change which app opens source files, but using TweakUI is a better choice.

Load TweakUI (http://tinyurl.com/553fw6), browse to Internet Explorer > View Source. Click Change Program... and browse for whatever app you prefer. This only changes the setting for Internet Explorer; to change the View Source app for Firefox, type about:config in the address bar, scroll to view_source.editor.path, and change the setting by pasting in the full path to the application you want to use. (The Firefox tip works with XP and Vista, but you’ll have to tweak the registry if you want to do the same for IE under Vista.)

Hack The Registry to Make Your System Shut Down More Quickly: TRUE

When’s the last time you didn’t have an application hang on you during shutdown? XP waits a grueling 20 seconds by default before trying to kill services that are still running when you’re trying to get out of the office, but you can knock this down to as low as zero with a quintet of registry hacks.

Make the following changes in regedit:

Under HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop, change the values for WaitToKillAppTimeout and HungAppTimeout to 1000 or 2000 (this is the wait time in milliseconds).
Under HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop, change the values for WaitToKillAppTimeout and HungAppTimeout to 1000 or 2000.
Under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control, change the value for WaitToKillAppTimeout to 1000 or 2000.
Use the same value for all three settings.

Use TweakUI To Set the Number Of Customized Folders In Explorer: TRUE

Many users want photo folders to show up with thumbnails in Explorer and have, say, everything else default to the list-based detail view. But if you have a large number of folders, Windows won’t keep track of them all, and if you go over the default of 400, some will revert to the standard view. This can be tweaked in the registry but it’s easier with TweakUI: You can get Windows to remember up to a maximum of 65,527 customized folders with a simple change.

In TweakUI, scroll to Explorer > Customizations. Change the “Folders to remember” to whatever number you’d like.

Disabling The Last-Access Timestamp Will Boost Performance: FALSE

A total bust. Turning off the mechanism that stamps a date and time on a file every time you access it (via a command-prompt instruction) does nothing for performance whatsoever. It may actually have negative consequences: Some sources worry that turning off these timestamps can wreak havoc on programs that rely on them, like incremental backups. Skip this one altogether.

XP/Vista Tips

You Need To Overwrite Your Hard Drive Seven Times With Random Data To Make Data Unrecoverable: TRUE

Conventional wisdom holds that you need to write and rewrite a hard drive numerous times with garbage before it will be totally unrecoverable by forensics experts. That’s not exactly the case: We overwrote a hard drive just once with zeroes and asked the recovery gurus at DriveSavers if they could rescue it. The answer: They couldn’t save a single bit. Now we don’t pretend to know about the hardcore resources of groups like the NSA, so if you’re that paranoid about being branded a terrorist because of a deleted PDF of The Anarchist’s Cookbook discovered on a used drive you bought on eBay, by all means, spend a week wiping that drive. But if you’re just casually recycling a drive for resale or donation, a single pass will do the trick and will save you literally days of time waiting for the wipe to finish.

Run a program like KillDisk (www.killdisk.com) and select a single zeroes-only pass.

Clearing The Prefetch Directory (or Cache) Will Improve Startup Time: FALSE

One of the most notorious Windows tips ever is that deleting all the files in the Windows\Prefetch directory will cause your system to boot faster. We tested the tip by repeatedly measuring boot times on a trio of both XP and Vista machines with overstuffed Prefetch folders, then running the same test after clearing the folders out. The result: No improvement in boot time in any of the cases. Some testers have reported that clearing the Prefetch cache actually lengthens boot time, though we didn’t experience this either.

You Can Tweak Virtual Memory Settings for Improved Performance: TRUE

In the Windows 95/98 era, conventional wisdom held that you should manually set your virtual memory (i.e., pagefile) size to at least 1.5 times the amount of RAM in order to optimize performance. (By default, Windows will manage pagefile size on its own: You will likely find the initial pagefile size set to 0.5x or 1x the amount of RAM you have). We were skeptical about this tip, but our benchmarks surprised us: Some systems showed no change at all, but some (particularly older machines) showed substantial improvement beyond the usual random noise we see in benchmark results. We got at least a 10 percent jump after we upped the initial pagefile size to 2x the amount of RAM on two separate machines. It won’t work for all computers, so the jury’s still out on this one, but because it’s so easy to do and there are no negative consequences, it’s worth a shot just to see if it has any effect.

In the XP System Control Panel, click Advanced, then (under Performance) click Settings, Advanced. In the Virtual Memory module, click Change. Click Custom size then up both Initial and Maximum size to roughly double your amount of RAM. Click Set (important!), then OK out of all windows.

In Vista, click “Advanced system settings” in the System Control Panel and follow the same instructions.

Disabling Unused Network Connections Will Improve Boot Time: TRUE

Say you set up a network drive for a computer you had months ago but is no longer on your network: When Windows boots, it spends at least some time reconnecting to that drive, wasting precious seconds you could be spending on Facebook. While XP and Vista are better than older versions of Windows about network connections (who can forget those interminable “Connecting...” messages?) it still makes sense to disconnect from network shares you no longer need. You won’t actually boot noticeably faster without those extra drive letters, but Explorer will become usable more quickly after launch. This is especially noticeable in Vista, which has a helpful “loading” progress indicator that overlays the address bar: Having any number of network shares will cause it to take an extra 10 to 20 seconds to fully load.

Right-click each shared folder in Explorer and select Disconnect. This will permanently remove them from your drive list unless you map them again.

Minimize Menu Loading Delay Time Through A Registry Hack: TRUE

By default, both XP and Vista wait 400 milliseconds before presenting expansion menus (those menu items with right-facing triangles on them). You can eliminate the wait completely for instantaneous menu expansion (though be warned, you may not actually like it). Note that this will not make, say, your primary File or Edit menu show up faster—those menus automatically load as fast as possible.

Run regedit at the Run prompt. Browse to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Desktop. Double-click the MenuShowDelay key in the right-hand pane and set the value to 0.

Disabling QoS And IPv6 Options Will Improve Bandwidth And Web Performance: FALSE

The theory goes that you should disable any service you aren’t using, and that turning off IPv6 and QoS Packet Scheduling options in your NIC properties will boost browsing speed. One absurd legend holds that QoS alone actually “reserves” 20 percent of your bandwidth. Microsoft has formally debunked this tip, and our tests back that up: We found zero difference at all in file-transfer speeds whether QoS and IPv6 options were on or off, on both XP and Vista systems.

Putting Your Paging File On a Second Hard Drive Will Improve Performance: TRUE

Splitting up the pagefile and your everyday apps is common sense. Doing this allows Windows to dump temp junk onto one drive while not having to interrupt reads or writes on the other. If you have two hard drives, this is a tip that definitely works and works well: Expect at least a 5 to 10 percent speed boost, depending on the existing speed of your rig and, especially, the performance of your drives. But any second drive will help at least a little: While not recommended, you can even put the pagefile on an external USB drive and see some performance gains.

Follow the same instructions as the “Virtual Memory” tip earlier. When in the VM settings, click your secondary drive, add a “Custom size” or “System managed size” paging file, and click Set. On your primary drive, select “No paging file” and click Set. OK out and reboot.

Cleaning Out Cached And Temp Files Improves Performance, Especially Of Your Web Browser: FALSE

Unless you have so much junk on your hard drive that you are nearly out of free space, deleting any number of files—whether they’re temp files or permanent ones—won’t improve performance at all. The only exceptions to the rule are for programs or processes that involve every file on your drive: Virus scans or full disk backups, for example, are faster if there’s less data to deal with. It makes sense to clear these files out using Disk Cleanup every now and then for the sake of good digital hygiene, but you won’t get a performance boost for your trouble.

Turning Off System Restore Improves Performance: FALSE

System Restore is a real aid when it comes to rolling back bad Windows patches and driver updates, but by its very nature, it is said to impact performance because it’s always creating restore points, thus robbing you of a little power. The truth: System Restore lurks idle most of the time and rarely does anything at all, creating checkpoints only during app installs plus once every 24 hours by default. Even then it spends only a few seconds doing so and only during idle time. It’s virtually unthinkable that you’d try to run a program at the exact same time that System Restore began creating a restore point, and even if you did, you probably wouldn’t notice. The proof is in the benchmarks: We got nearly identical results on PCMark whether System Restore was on or off. (Note, however, that System Restore can consume a fair amount of disk space—this is configurable—so if gigabytes are precious to you, consider throttling it back.)

Defragmenting SSD Drives Is Useful: FALSE

Regardless of the actual value of defragmenting a physical hard disk (see the tip below), there’s really no value at all in defragging an SSD. The reason has to do with the way flash memory is constructed. The theory behind defragmenting a hard drive is to order data into contiguous, uninterrupted segments of the disk. But flash memory isn’t built that way: Blocks of data are placed throughout the drive space and are all accessible with the exact same speed, and since there are no moving parts in an SSD, there’s no advantage to rearranging them. Some even caution that, since flash memory is limited to a finite number of writes before it fails, defragmenting can actually do more harm than good.

Defragmenting Your Hard Drive Improves Performance: TRUE

One of the most venerable suggestions for improving disk performance is to defragment your hard drive regularly. The science of defragging is sound: By putting all the bits of a file or application in sequential order on your drive, the drive should have to do less work (and spend less time) to access those files. Thus: faster performance. Well, in practice it’s not really true. Today’s hard drives are fast enough to make fragmentation largely irrelevant, and our benchmark tests have repeatedly borne this out: On moderately fragmented drives, defragmentation will offer negligible to no performance increase. For seriously fragmented drives (think 40 percent or more), especially those running XP or older OSes, defragmentation can help, but don’t expect the world. As for third-party defrag tools, there’s no real evidence that they’re any more effective than Windows’ built-in defragger.

Click Disk Defragmenter under Accessories / System Tools.

Eliminate the Recent Documents/Recent Items Folder With a Registry Hack: TRUE

For privacy reasons, many users on shared computers like to clear the Recent Documents folder or delete it altogether. Totally understandable, but there’s no need to turn to the registry to do the job. It’s all in the invaluable TweakUI (and in Vista, it’s built into the OS).

In XP: Install TweakUI and browse to the Explorer section; then uncheck “Allow Recent Documents on Start menu.”

In Vista, right-click the taskbar, click the Start Menu tab, and uncheck “Store and display a list of recently opened files.”

Turning Off The Windows Splash Screen Will Shave Time Off Your Boot: TRUE

No one seriously needs to be reminded they’re running Windows while the computer is loading the OS, right? Turning off the Windows splash screen ought to cut a little bit off of system boot time. For most systems, this generally works, but we never saw an average improvement of more than two seconds—and even less on Vista systems (probably because in lieu of the animated progress bar, you get a colorful Aurora). Still, a second is a second....

XP: At the Run prompt, type msconfig. Click the BOOT.INI tab, and select the
/NOGUIBOOT option.

Very similar for Vista: Run msconfig, click the Boot tab, and select the No GUI Boot option.

Turning Off Support For 8.3 Filenames Will Improve Performance: TRUE

To maintain backward compatibility, Windows keeps an alias of every file and folder name in the old 8.3 format, even on NTFS partitions that support long filenames. The odds that you will ever need to use this format to access a file are incredibly small, so you can turn it off via a registry hack. The tip does nothing for general performance, but it can shorten the time it takes to open and display folders, though you’ll notice a difference only with extremely full folders (1,000 items or more) and usually only the first time they are opened.

Run regedit and browse to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem. Select NtfsDisable8dot3NameCreation and change the value to 1.

A Registry Hack Lets You Keep Windows From Rebooting Automatically After Installing Updates: TRUE

Another huge nuisance in Windows. There’s just nothing quite like leaving a file open overnight, then returning to your PC in the morning to find that Microsoft has helpfully restarted your machine for you, shoving all your work into digital limbo and leaving an evil calling card: “This update required an automatic restart.” It’s possible to stop auto-reboots, but it’ll take a registry hack.

Run regedit and browse to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Polices\Microsoft\Windows. Create a new key under Windows and call it WindowsUpdate. Now create another new key under WindowsUpdate called AU. With AU selected, in the right-hand pane right-click and create a New DWORD. Call it NoAutoRebootWithLoggedOnUsers. Double-click the DWORD and give it a value of 1. Reboot, and Windows’s death grip over your system will be ended.

A Registry Hack Lets You Alphabetize The All Programs List Automatically: TRUE

One of Windows’s little eccentricities is that when you install a new application it places it in the All Programs list at the bottom, not in alphabetic order where it belongs. You can manually reorder the list by right-clicking on one of its entries and clicking Sort by Name, but you’ll need a complicated registry hack to automate things every time you install an app.

Run regedit and browse to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer. Right-click the MenuOrder key (in the left-hand pane) and select Permissions. Click Advanced. Deselect “Include inheritable permissions...” (Vista) or “Include from parent the permission...” (XP). Click Copy at the Security pop-up. Click OK. Now, back in the Permissions view, select your user name and deselect “Allow” next to Full Control in the Permissions pane at the bottom of the window. Repeat this step for any groups you are part of (Administrators, etc.). Reboot. Now when you install apps, they’ll be alphabetized automatically. Whew!

Vista Tips

Turning On Multiple Cores In Vista Improves Boot Time: FALSE

You’ll find an option within Vista’s msconfig utility that cryptically lets you set the “Number of processors” used during boot. By default it is turned off (with the drop-down set to 1). We tried upping the setting to 2 on a dual-core system and, guess what, no change in boot time whatsoever. Turns out this is just a debug setting for coders who want to test how programs load on single-core machines without having to physically go to a less-sophisticated PC. It can be completely ignored. By default Windows uses all your cores.

Superfetch Boosts Performance: TRUE

Superfetch is an update of the XP Prefetcher, designed to more intelligently load applications into RAM based on frequency of use. With Superfetch on, your PC should theoretically get faster over time, particularly when loading frequently used apps. You won’t see improvement in general performance, like rendering Photoshop files, but Superfetch does tend to make apps load 10 to 20 percent more quickly, depending on their size.

Superfetch is on by default. To ensure that it’s active, go to the Control Panel, open Administrative Tools, and select Services. Scroll down to Superfetch and ensure that it is set to “Started” and “Automatic.”

Write Caching Will Improve Performance On SATA Drives: TRUE

This feature is disabled by default in Vista because if your computer loses power before a write is completed, you can lose data. If you’re confident in your UPS’s capabilities, crank it up and you’ll see at least a 10 percent improvement in performance. Remember, write caching is supported only on SATA drives. The options are grayed out for older ATA disks.

In Explorer, right-click the drive you want to speed up and select Properties. Click the Hardware tab, select Properties again. Click the Policies tab. Check both of the boxes beneath “Optimize for performance.”

ReadyBoost Will Improve System Performance: TRUE

Yes and no. If you have a reasonably modern system, with even 1GB of RAM or more, you won’t see any performance increase from ReadyBoost, which lets you use removable flash memory to cache disk operations. In fact, with lots of RAM, we saw a slight dip in performance when using ReadyBoost. The picture is different if you’re pathetically RAM-poor: With just 512MB of RAM, app load times and general performance can be modestly improved with ReadyBoost... but why not spring for some real DIMMs instead of this half-baked setup? You shouldn’t be running Vista at all with so little RAM, nor should you be reading this magazine. 2GB of name-brand RAM will cost you less than 50 bucks; pricier than a 2GB thumb drive but oh so worth it.

If you really want to run ReadyBoost, the easiest way to turn it on is to insert your thumb drive and allow AutoPlay to run. Select “Speed up my system” from the menu. If you have AutoPlay disabled, right-click the thumb drive in the Computer view, select Properties, and choose the ReadyBoost tab. Dial ReadyBoost up to the maximum supported level of 4GB.

Editor's note: This story was originally published in November 2008.

Windows 7, Vista Gain at XP's Expense

Pulkit Chandna — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 19:28:00 -0500

The venerable Windows XP operating system has shown few signs of perishing despite the fact that it is almost eight years old. Windows XP’s durability must be worrying Microsoft, which is preparing for the retail launch of XP’s grandson, Windows 7. But the OS usage figures for August released by web analytics company Net Applications will surely comfort Microsoft.

Windows XP usage plunged 1.1 percent in August, equaling its previous worst showing in November 2008. XP still has a viselike grip on the OS market, with a 71.8 percent market share. According to Net Applications’ data, Vista usage reached an all-time high of 18.8 percent in the month of August, during which it rose by 0.9 percent. Windows 7 also gained 0.3 percent to finish the month with a 1.2 percent market share.

Can Windows 7 Fix Vista’s Tarnished Image in the History Books?

Justin Kerr — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 13:07:23 -0500

Windows 7 still isn’t officially released to the general public yet, but I’m willing to bet dollars to doughnuts that it will be a universal hit. Users making the jump from Windows XP have a lot of advances to look forward to, and for the most part we can thank Vista. The similarities between the two OS’s are shocking, so much so that many have simply dubbed Windows 7 as “Vista done right”.

Nobody will argue that Windows 7 isn’t a huge leap forward in terms of performance, but even a $600 PC purchased today has more than enough muscle to deliver an excellent experience in Vista. The simple fact that Windows 7 will be born into a mature world full of drivers written for it’s predecessor will almost singlehandedly ensure a successful rollout. Lack of drivers if you recall, was the single largest complaint against Vista’s at launch and Microsoft even alleges that it was a huge factor in reports of it’s early instability.

"I think people will look back on Vista after the Windows 7 release and realize that there were actually a bunch of good things there" said Steve Guggenheimer, vice president of the OEM division at Microsoft, in a ChannelWeb story. "So it'll actually be interesting to see in two years what the perception is of Vista."

So with the Windows 7 launch day less than three months away, are you ready to forgive Vista?

Microsoft Releases Workaround for Video ActiveX Vulnerability That Can Pwn Your PC

Mark Edward Soper — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 19:40:58 -0500

This week, Microsoft announced that DirectShow ActiveX code in Internet Explorer 6 and 7 that was reserved for future use has finally been used - by malware providers. The DirectShow Video ActiveX control in the msvidctr.dll file can be used to take over your system if you visit an infected website. According to Symantec, thousands of websites (primarily in China and other parts of Asia) have been affected.

Who's vulnerable? According to Microsoft Knowledge Base article 972890, Windows Server 2003, Windows XP SP2, Windows XP SP3, and Windows XP 64-bit edition are at risk if they haven't upgraded to IE8. IE8 is not vulnerable because the DirectShow ActiveX control being exploited was disabled in IE8. But, if you're still running IE7 (or - horrors! - IE6), what now?

Although Microsoft doesn't have a software patch, it's offering the next best thing: visit KB article 972890 to download and run Microsoft Fix it control 50287 to work around the problem (the same site also offers Microsoft Fix it control 50288 to disable the workaround). The woraround and disable workaround controls are distributed in .msi installer files. Microsoft also recommends the workaround for Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 users who are still running IE7.

If you want to learn more about what the workaround changes, you can visit the Microsoft Security Advisory (972890) page. This page lists the CLSID values that must be changed. This information can be incorporated into a .reg file, or can be distributed to multiple PCs in a domain using Group Policy. For additional information, see Security Focus article 35558.

Windows 7 More User Friendly, Starting with the Box

Andy Salisbury — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 17:23:25 -0500

Microsoft’s main aim with Windows 7 is to make it much easier to use than its predecessor, Vista. Apparently, this also includes the packaging that it comes in.

While the old packaging did take a brief moment to figure out, the new box will work in a way that most of us are very familiar with, and open just like a DVD case. However, the shape of the package will remain the same. It’ll include just the disc and a getting started guide.

Overall, Microsoft reports that they’ve been able to lighten up the package weight by 37 percent with these changes.

Image Credit: Microsoft, CentrumXP pl

Russia Launches Antitrust Probe of Microsoft

Justin Kerr — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 23:05:23 -0500

Russia’s state run anti-monopoly service has launched a formal investigation into Microsoft over cutbacks in the supply of Windows XP. The agency believes that Microsoft has violated antimonopoly legislation by intentionally limiting the stock of Windows XP to Russia in both retail, and OEM editions which come preinstalled on new PC’s. Analysts claim that Windows Vista continues to be available, while the ongoing demand for XP both by the public, and the government, remains unsatisfied.

Microsoft has yet to formally address the issue, but according to the Moscow regional office, nobody from the anti-monopoly service has tried to contact them. "We (have) always answered antimonopoly service questions in full and intend to continue this practice in future," Microsoft spokeswoman Marina Levina said by telephone. Full scale investigations by the antimonopoly service in Russia are rare, and Microsoft will be given more details by July 24th.

The accusations being made in Russia are drastically different than previous antitrust cases leveled by the EU and USA. In both these cases, the complaints were focused on software bundling for which it was fined $708 million in 2004 by the EU.

Could Microsoft be intentionally limiting Windows XP supply in Russia to help push Vista?