How To run Win7 on any old laptop or desktop

Everyone has it, an old laptop or desktop that really has no use anymore, or is just laying around the house for decoration or dust gathering.

Even when ones needs a barebone system for a specific purpose or task to
fulfill, this will help you get there.

Have you thought about running win7 on it ? You could...



Only two conditions :

Code:

-> Meet the minimum requirements :

1GHz Processor (x86 or x64)
1GB of RAM
16GB HDD
DVD-RW Drive

Your laptop or desktop needs these four criteria to be able to install and run
Win7.

To run Aero, you will need a proper Graphics card which supports at least
DX9 an 128MB memory, but we're going for the performance here,
so aero really doesn't matter and is prefered to be disabled.

-> Follow this guide

So here's what you need to do after installation.
It will make any system that meets the requirements run fairly smooth :


1. Disable aero

Code:

Sure, the aero interface is really nice, but it is a resource hogg, especially on
an old desktop or laptop. So disabling it will gives us the juice we need.

-Right Click on your Desktop and select ”Personalize”.
Then click the Window Color tab.
-Uncheck the Box saying ”Enable Transparency” and then click on
”Open classic appearance properties for more color options”.
-A window will pop up. Apply a Standard or Basic theme from it.

2. Disable AeroPeek and AeroSnap features

Code:

Aero Snap enables you to maximize, minimize and resize windows by dragging
and dropping them in the screen corners.
Aero Peek enables you to peek through all the open windows by showing only
their outlines. Aero Peek is like the ”Show Desktop” Feature in XP and Vista,
only a bit more fancy.

Goto Control Panel and double-click on ”Ease of Access Center”.
Now click on the ”Make it easier to focus on tasks”
Now uncheck
”Prevent windows from being automatically arranged when moved to the edge of the screen” .

Right click on the Windows 7 taskbar and select Properties.
Now untick the ”Use Aero Peek to preview the desktop” option from there.

3. Disable Visual Effects

Code:

-Go to control panel -> classic view (large thumbs)
-Click System -> advanced system settings
-Select the Advanced tab -> Performance settings -> visual effects

Now untick all the options except the last four
(actually three; you can untick the second option from the last four).
The diference after reboot will be noticable...

4. Speed up boot

Code:

-Go into your bios (usually "Del" key or "F2" upon boot).
-Disable boot screen, mem check and any other boot features that increase
boot time. Set bios for fast boot if the option is there.
(for laptops these are usually not present)
-In windows, type msconfig in a run box, and go into the Boot tab.
-Check "NoGui Boot"
-Go to Advanced Options...
-When dualbooting, set time-out to 3, otherwise set it to 0.
-When having dual or quad core, check the number of processors box and
 set it to the number of cores you have.

5. Turn off unneccesary features

Code:

Goto control panel -> Programs and features -> Turn features on or off
uncheck features you don't plan on using.

6. Disable UAC (User Account Control)

Code:

The User account control (UAC) feature in Windows 7 can protect
your computer, though when you are a daily user of your computer it can be
very annoying. Also, when using a proper AV+FW+Malware setup, really it's
not that crucial.

However I do not recommend this for the ones who want this feature
enabled, so this will be users choice.

-Goto control panel -> action center (classic view)
-Click "settings for User Account Control" on the left
-Drag the slider all the way down to "Never Notify"
-"Ok" and reboot

NOTE : Sidebar and gadgets will not work prperly when UAC is disabled,
so better to turn it off completely aswell.
To do that goto control panel, programs and features.
Click "turn features on and off" and uncheck "Windows gadget platform".

7. Disable unneccesary services

Code:

A lot of services are set to automatic, but aren't actually used at all.
Some you will only need occasionally and aren't crucial.
So a lot of resources get eaten which you can save.

Just type services.msc in a run box. It will open the services pane.

www.blackviper.com for figuring out everything you need to know about
services in win7. Use the site, and go over the services one by one.
Disable the unneeded ones, or set to manual if it is recommended.

NOTE : on the site, guidelines are included for barebones.

8. Disable search indexing service

Code:

Search Indexing service keeps track of files so that they can be
found quickly when asked at some other time.
This feature is only useful if you perform frequent searches on your system,
but mind it is a desastrous resource hog.
We are going for performance here, so I certainly recommend you to disable
this feature.

rightclick every hard drive you have, and uncheck the
"use this drive to index blablabla"

AND

goto services.msc and set Windows search to Manual.

9. Change Power Plan to Maximum Performance

Code:

Doubleclick Power options in control panel.
Click the arrow down to show additional plans.
Activate the High Performance plan, and go to advanced if you want to
tweak a little here and there.

10. Setup ReadyBoost

Code:

The ready boost feature in Windows 7 boosts performance and speed of
windows 7 greatly by using your flash/pen drive as Ram.
This one is a must for old machines with little as little as 1Gb of ram.

You need to have a High Speed Flash/USB or Pendrive with you which is
ready boost compatible.

Plug it in and open explorer.
Right-click the on USB Flash/Pendrive and select “Ready Boost”
Now check “Use this device”.
(You can configure how much space on your drive to be used as Ram.)

11. Disable Thumbnail Preview in explorer

Code:

This feature will show small thumbnails of the contents of a folder instead of
it’s icon. But this feature does eat system resources.
Explorer will speed up when this is disabled.

In explorer, click the organise menu at the top.
Goto folder and search options -> "view" tab.
check "Always show icons, never thumbnails".

12. Turn off screen saver and wallpaper

Code:

Rightclick desktop -> personalize
Click the Screen Saver link and set to "None".
Now goto "desktop background" link
From the Location drop down menu select "Solid Colors" and pick one color.

13. Disable unneccesary StartUp applications

Code:

A lot of installed apps will enable certain services at startup.
When you install tons of apps, this loss of resources can be significantly high.
Disabling them will save up lots of resources, AND speedup boot time with a
few seconds.

So first install all the apps you need on the machine.

Then type msconfig in a run box.
Goto the startup tab.
Uncheck all apps you don't want running at startup, there by disabling them
and certain services from starting up at login.

14. Registry Tweaks to speed up Windows

Code:

There are litterally tons of tweaks one can use for this purpose.
There are many threads on MDL alone you can lookup to determine which
ones could be of use to u.
Everyone prefers other kinds of tweaks, and will need their own set according
to the rig they have set up. So I will leave this completely to you to decide
whether to use them and which ones.