Installing Win 7 for first time -- tips?

[Krusty]

I've got Win 7 pro (full) on the way to me. I posted in the technical forum but I guess it goes here more.

What do I need to know? UAC is bad. Superfetch is bad. What else?

I know I'll have to get some drivers for my SSD (also coming) but that's just to start the install. To set up the OS the first time what kind of tips and tricks should I know?

Thanks,

[gpwurzel]

Obvious stuff - make sure you take off any data/documents you want to keep.

Use the format during the install to ensure its correctly formatted for win7 (NTFS!!!)

UAC in Win7 can be dialled back to only alert when something wants to change info on your hard disk (recommend not turning it off completely)

For AH, use something like alacritypc to turn services off to play, and restart when finished playing etc.

Superfetch can safely be turned off for playing (or if it affects anything else on your system).

If you cant find a win7 specific driver, you can use Vista drivers.

Good luck with the new build, if your coming from Vista - win7 is what vista "should" have been.

If your coming from XP, it has a lot of nifty, even useful features.

(yeah, I know the above is all the normal obvious stuff, but never hurts to remind people)

Wurzel

[Krusty]

It will be a fresh install on fresh SSD, 64-bit, and will be on a new box. I've been using XP for many a year now but want (no no no, "need") to break the 4GB limit, especially if I'm putting in a 1GB or 2 GB video card.


P.S. Good tip about Vista drivers

[Reschke]

Just sit back and let it install on its own and you will be fine. I don't use anything to tune services off in Win7 64 bit Ultimate install on my rig and it's rock solid and has been for over a year and a half now. Just make sure that your SSD drivers are up to date and it should be ok.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

I've got Win 7 pro (full) on the way to me. I posted in the technical forum but I guess it goes here more.

What do I need to know? UAC is bad. Superfetch is bad. What else?

I know I'll have to get some drivers for my SSD (also coming) but that's just to start the install. To set up the OS the first time what kind of tips and tricks should I know?

Thanks,

Well you can erase those two first things immediately. UAC is far from bad as it gives you added security. Annoying? Yes. But more secure.

Superfetch is actually very beneficial to you as it will cache programs to your free ram. It means that when you play AH your textures etc. are cached in memory and they're fetched from there with zero lag instead of starting to chug them from your harddrive.

Windows Vista had a bad implementation of superfecth and indexing causing peoples harddrives to rattle all the time. Not going to happen in 7. Even if you get the SSD, superfetch will still be at least tenfold faster if not more.

[Chalenge]

While UAC makes things more secure you are still going to come to a point (possibility exists) where you decide to turn it off. If thats the case and W7 has been installed for a while then thats bad and you have to reinstall or face really awful situations. Best turn it off right away and be done with it. However... if you are a person that clicks on links your friends send to you or you frequent porn... mediafire... and so on... leave it on.

Superfetch is all positive in my book.

Turn off Readyboost if it is somehow on. Its related to Superfetch but you dont want it.

Turn off Windows Update but make sure to check for updates every week at the same time (they are released at 5pm PST I believe on Tuesdays so I get them on Thursdays so I get word if there was a glitch in a certain release).

If you have a Router you dont need Windows Firewall. But you should go through the process of testing your system with ShieldsUp!:

https://www.grc.com/x/ne.dll?bh0bkyd2

I turn off all the remote access stuff (the "Remote..." services) except you may have to have a couple of them listed as "Remote Procedure Call." Not sure but I have those two set as Automatic and Manual.

Many other services you will have to check manually.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

Now that Chalenge went in there I might add one tweak that I usually perform: Turn off SSDP service. It's nothing but a security risk and is known to cause problems at least on XP revisions.

Personally I usually disable several other unnecessary services too but they're not for novices because if you turn wrong things off your computer might not work properly or at all anymore. It might be extremely hard to figure out why application x does not work after you disabled 20 services and it depended on one 

[gyrene81]

krusty, this is a list of things i know are safe to disable on vista and win7 64bit:

aero
superfetch
readyboost (it's for external usb drives)
Distributed Link Tracking Client
Messenger Sharing Folders USN Journal Reader Service
Offline Files
Server
Fax
Tablet PC Input Service
Windows Error Reporting Service
Base Filtering Engine
Certificate Propagation
Internet Connection Sharing (only safe if you are not sharing your Internet connection on your local computer)
IP Helper
Net.tcp Port Sharing Service
Parental Controls
Remote Registry
Routing and Remote Access
Security Center
SSDP Discovery
Smart Card
Smart Card Removal Policy
Themes (this is a huge resource hog)
UpnP Device Host
Telephony
Terminal Services Configuration
Terminal Services UserMode Port Redirector
Windows Defender (also be sure to disable it from starting in the Start->Run->msconfig startup tab)
Windows Media Center Extender Service
Windows Media Center Receiver Service
Windows Media Center Scheduler Service
Windows Media Center Service Launcher
Windows Media Player Network Sharing Service (this is a nasty one. It causes all manner of pauses and stutters and will spontaneously reappear even when it is stopped)
Windows Remote Management
WinHTTP Web Proxy Auto-Discovery Service



then set all of these to "manual" start...

Application Experience
Application Information
Application Layer Gateway Service
Application Management
Block Level Backup Engine Service
CNG Key Isolation
COM+ System Application
DFS Replication
Diagnostic Service Host
Diagnostic System Host
Distributed Transaction Coordinator
Extensible Authentication Protocol
Function Discovery Provider Host
Health Key and Certificate Management
Human Interface Device Access
Interactive Services Detection
IPSec Policy Agent
Link-Layer Topology Discovery Mapper
Microsoft iSCSI Initiator Service
Microsoft Software Shadow Copy Provider
Netlogon
Network Access Protection Agent
Network Connections
Peer Name Resolution Protocol
Peer Networking Grouping
Peer Networking Identity Manager
Performance Logs and Alerts
PnP-X IP Bus Enumerator
PNRP Machine Name Publication Service
Portable Device Enumerator Service
Problem Reports and Solutions Control Panel Support
Protected Storage
Quality Windows Audio Video Experience
Remote Access Auto-Connection Manager
Remote Access Connection Manager
Remote Procedure Call (RPC) Locator
SL UI Notification Service
SNMP Trap
Thread Ordering Server
TPM Base Services
Virtual Disk
Volume Shadow Copy
Windows Backup
Windows Cardspace
Windows Color System
Windows Connect Now – Config Registrar
Windows Driver Foundation – User-mode Driver Framework
Windows Event Collector
Windows Image Acquisition (WIA)
Windows Installer
Windows Module Installer
Windows Presentation Foundation Font Cache 3.0.0.0
Windows Search
Wired AutoConfig
WLAN AutoConfig

[MrRiplEy[H]]

krusty, this is a list of things i know are safe to disable on vista and win7 64bit:

aero
superfetch
readyboost (it's for external usb drives)
Distributed Link Tracking Client
Messenger Sharing Folders USN Journal Reader Service
Offline Files
Server
Fax
Tablet PC Input Service
Windows Error Reporting Service
Base Filtering Engine
Certificate Propagation
Internet Connection Sharing (only safe if you are not sharing your Internet connection on your local computer)
IP Helper
Net.tcp Port Sharing Service
Parental Controls
Remote Registry
Routing and Remote Access
Security Center
SSDP Discovery
Smart Card
Smart Card Removal Policy
Themes (this is a huge resource hog)
UpnP Device Host
Telephony
Terminal Services Configuration
Terminal Services UserMode Port Redirector
Windows Defender (also be sure to disable it from starting in the Start->Run->msconfig startup tab)
Windows Media Center Extender Service
Windows Media Center Receiver Service
Windows Media Center Scheduler Service
Windows Media Center Service Launcher
Windows Media Player Network Sharing Service (this is a nasty one. It causes all manner of pauses and stutters and will spontaneously reappear even when it is stopped)
Windows Remote Management
WinHTTP Web Proxy Auto-Discovery Service



then set all of these to "manual" start...

Application Experience
Application Information
Application Layer Gateway Service
Application Management
Block Level Backup Engine Service
CNG Key Isolation
COM+ System Application
DFS Replication
Diagnostic Service Host
Diagnostic System Host
Distributed Transaction Coordinator
Extensible Authentication Protocol
Function Discovery Provider Host
Health Key and Certificate Management
Human Interface Device Access
Interactive Services Detection
IPSec Policy Agent
Link-Layer Topology Discovery Mapper
Microsoft iSCSI Initiator Service
Microsoft Software Shadow Copy Provider
Netlogon
Network Access Protection Agent
Network Connections
Peer Name Resolution Protocol
Peer Networking Grouping
Peer Networking Identity Manager
Performance Logs and Alerts
PnP-X IP Bus Enumerator
PNRP Machine Name Publication Service
Portable Device Enumerator Service
Problem Reports and Solutions Control Panel Support
Protected Storage
Quality Windows Audio Video Experience
Remote Access Auto-Connection Manager
Remote Access Connection Manager
Remote Procedure Call (RPC) Locator
SL UI Notification Service
SNMP Trap
Thread Ordering Server
TPM Base Services
Virtual Disk
Volume Shadow Copy
Windows Backup
Windows Cardspace
Windows Color System
Windows Connect Now – Config Registrar
Windows Driver Foundation – User-mode Driver Framework
Windows Event Collector
Windows Image Acquisition (WIA)
Windows Installer
Windows Module Installer
Windows Presentation Foundation Font Cache 3.0.0.0
Windows Search
Wired AutoConfig
WLAN AutoConfig

Of course after that your performance has taken a serious hit and the OS looks as ugly as Win95. But at least you have 140Mb more space on top of your existing 7,5Gb of available ram 

[gyrene81]

Of course after that your performance has taken a serious hit and the OS looks as ugly as Win95. But at least you have 140Mb more space on top of your existing 7,5Gb of available ram 

sorry ripley...stick with your mac...your knowledge of windows performance management is worse than your knowledge of apple history...my win7 enterprise 64 bit 2.4ghz core duo 4gb ram system runs very fast with that list and more...faster than it did with a fresh install of winxp...zero loss of needed functionality and i do more than game on this system.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

sorry ripley...stick with your mac...your knowledge of windows performance management is worse than your knowledge of apple history...my win7 enterprise 64 bit 2.4ghz core duo 4gb ram system runs very fast with that list and more...faster than it did with a fresh install of winxp...zero loss of needed functionality and i do more than game on this system.

Lol yeah, Superfetch BOOSTS your performance and you disable it? You're making mistakes based on urban legends. I'm not saying that everything on your list was bad. In fact apart from sf and the visual crippling from disabling aero and themes that list is quite good.

Superfetch is equivalent to the long time 'holy grail' of XP users, ram disk. Except stuff gets inserted and released from there fully automatically based on your usage profiles.

[gyrene81]

Lol yeah, Superfetch BOOSTS your performance and you disable it? You're making mistakes based on urban legends. I'm not saying that everything on your list was bad. In fact apart from sf and the visual crippling from disabling aero and themes that list is quite good.

Superfetch is equivalent to the long time 'holy grail' of XP users, ram disk. Except stuff gets inserted and released from there fully automatically based on your usage profiles.

i apologize ripley...

fact: windows 7 advance performance tuning recommendations from multiple resources including microsoft (via the msdn) says "to boost performance" turn off superfecth and aero. superfetch works similar to windows search in that it caches and indexes information (most used applications) which increases cpu/memory/disk io overhead...functions that decrease performance for gaming systems.

aero is nothing but silly eye candy that does things like allow for slide shows screen savers, animated icons, peek and shake, etc...the same type of stuff you would turn off in windows xp to improve performance...and it is far from visually crippling...i'm using customized windows 7 basic desktop settings without the stupid animations and gadgets...

[MrRiplEy[H]]

i apologize ripley...

fact: windows 7 advance performance tuning recommendations from multiple resources including microsoft (via the msdn) says "to boost performance" turn off superfecth and aero. superfetch works similar to windows search in that it caches and indexes information (most used applications) which increases cpu/memory/disk io overhead...functions that decrease performance for gaming systems.

aero is nothing but silly eye candy that does things like allow for slide shows screen savers, animated icons, peek and shake, etc...the same type of stuff you would turn off in windows xp to improve performance...and it is far from visually crippling...i'm using customized windows 7 basic desktop settings without the stupid animations and gadgets...

Those tuning advices are for extremely low end machines gyrene, not for your typical gaming box. They're meant for hardware that's struggling to run win7 as it is and have limited resources. A gaming box with 8 gigs of ram has resources to spare in any given situation. Superfetch is also tuned so that it will _not_ run indexing or fill cache when any cpu or i/o intensive task is being performed. This is again different from Vista where it was much more aggressive and caused i/o bottlenecks to people.

Aero is all about eye candy, true. But peek can be very handy for people who have a lot of stuff open for example. Without aero your cpu will do all the work on display where aero loads them on gpu so you basically lose nothing. And disabling themes effectively drops the visual outlook to win95 time.

I honestly can see no kind of difference whatsoever in games if I have everything running or everything skimmed to the bone. Both cases perform flawlessly.

[guncrasher]

make sure you don't turn off system help programs , some where listed, or you will be in trouble if your connectios are fubar and you can't fix them for example.  no need to run 6 process only if you have a good system.  some like remote confections should be turned off, others perhaps not.

semp

[gyrene81]

to be frank ripley...i've taken a fresh laptop dual core 2.8ghz 4gb ddr2 250gb 7200rpm hdd...full windows 7 enterprise 64bit install with corporate software load including adobe acrobat pro, ms office 2010, ms lync (communicator) login on startup, quicktime, all plugins and add-ons available, wireless and bluetooth activation enabled on start, etc...windows search turned off...after 3 months of use, disabled aero...major improvement in boot time. disabled superfetch, freed up memory, applications that started up on login were ready to use a full 90 seconds faster (stop watch) and disk io/activity was cut way down. all windows systems where i work must have bitlocker encryption enabled...if you want to see a new business class computer turn into a 386, run superfetch with bitlocker.

on an average work day i have more than 4 ssh secure shell client sessions, outlook, lync, internet explorer with 5 tabs, wordpad/notepad, maybe a pdf file or two, open on my work system...there is no functionality that aero can give me that i don't have when it's disabled...when you know how to set up a windows system for performance and functionality, fluff is not required.

i've been dealing with all the microsoft/pc junk you and several others pointed out in that mac os discussion for 18+ years as a professional...removing/disabling all of microsoft's piss poor implementations of apple/mac style fluff has kept me from having to chew on tylenol and tums 24/7...i don't have to do it so often now that i'm a unix admin but i still get called on to "fix" windows problems, at home and work, that could have been avoided with a little "preventive tweaking".