Just got Windows 7 - now what?

Zascar

After being a big xp fan for years, I've eventually migrated to Windows 7 - I had used it back when the beta came out but went back to xp as some things did not work for me. Seems grand now - enjoying it so far. The only thing is it does not seem as impressive as what I have seen from videos and screenshots online etc. I'm wondering are there some additional tweaks that are worth making or components/programs that are good to install to make the whole experience better?

Not sure why but the Aero thing does not work for me. I have the Aero theme turned on but I don't get the taskbar previews, and hovering over the bottom right does not give me a preview of the desktop. When I go into talkbar properties the 'User Aero Peek' button is ticked but greyed out - like this. I remember having the same problem with my old pc but it was low spec with integrated graphics - but my new one is pretty decent with a 512 Radeon. Hmmmm

Can anyone point me to some resources to learn more about Win7 and getting the max out of it?

Thanks

tman

Not too sure about the rest of your post, but for the Aero issue, have you definitely installed the latest catalyst drivers for your graphics card?

Fysh

Check whether you've got the latest AMD drivers for your card here; update them if not.

Are you using an Aero theme? The Aero desktop peek option isn't available in the basic/high-contrast themes, which makes sense as those themes are intended for lower resource consumption.

Personally the only bolt-on I think is particularly worth seeking out with Win7 is the Sysinternals Desktops utility for having multiple desktops. Beyond that, I mostly ignore the shiny stuff as it seems to be primarily an attempt to look impressive rather than being anything particularly useful.

Odaise Gaelach

Click on the Start menu, type "troubleshooting" and press enter. Click on the troubleshooter named "Display Aero desktop effects" and follow the instructions. That'll enable them or show you what you need to do.

Zascar

Thanks guys I reinstalled the drivers and it works now

So any other tips for Pimping 7?

Odaise Gaelach

Anything in particular you'd like to pimp out?

voxpop

Windows XP theme

tman

To be honest I like it fine just the way it is... There's no need for unnecessary themes when the bundled ones look as nice as they do.

Just do the usual like disabling unneeded services, change the amount of space reserved by shadow storage etc...

smk89

Ccleaner allows you to easily disable start up programs to allow faster start up and there are some really clever desktop gadgets available.

ooh and a free anti virus is microsoft security essentials which is free if windows 7 is genuine.

Odaise Gaelach

I remember CCleaner causing problems with my computer... to be honest, I can't remember what it was exactly...

Definitely recommend Security Essentials though.

Overheal

Odaise Gaelach wrote: »

I remember CCleaner causing problems with my computer... to be honest, I can't remember what it was exactly...

It works 99% of the time. Its always wise to backup the registry before you delete any errors, the backups only take up a few kilobytes - a negligible amount of space.

Windows 7 is great the way it is. The only extra setup involved for me was Home Network/Sharing, but thats really just your basic setup and security options. There are few real "tweaks" that are required to get good performance out of the OS. At most I run a good Defrag right after the OS is in and run CCleaner's Startup tab to ensure only the essentials are up on boot.

For the first defrags I go to perfectdisk's website, grab the trialware and use their Offline Defrag: It gets everything. No chunks of unmovable filespace.

Odaise Gaelach

Overheal wrote: »

It works 99% of the time. Its always wise to backup the registry before you delete any errors, the backups only take up a few kilobytes - a negligible amount of space.

No no no, it wasn't registry problems that it caused for me. I remember though having problems with my machine, but when I uninstalled CCleaner they stopped or were resolved. That's the kind of problem I meant; nothing to do with tampering with the registry.

Spunog UIE

Not stricly just for Win7 but my must haves are:

Launchy this is one of my fav programs for the last few years. Simply press a hot key and then type the name of the program you want rather than having a desktop shortcut or having to use the start menu. It just makes accessing everything so fast!

irfanview a simply presented image viewer. One of my favorite apps that just works so well even if it has an ugly file icon.

Stardock Fences Lets you keep all your desktop icons tidy and under control.

Super Copier 2 replaces the explorer copier which I think is pretty rubbish. Lets ya easily queue up things and gives you a much better indication of file copy progress. Find it to be quicker with less annoying prompts etc. Can be turned on and off pretty easily.

Everything Search a very nice simple program. It makes an index of the files on your pc and allows you to search everything much quicker than the windows default search. Very simple to use but pretty powerful too.

Security Essentials one of the best anti virus if you don't want to pay, much better imo than AVG which has gone to the dogs lately.

Net Meter free handy little network monitoring app

Digsby (chat program) another highly recommended app. You can turn off the ads in it if you like. Pretty much recommended if you use MSN, Gmail chat, facebook chat etc'. Its excellent.

Then I suppose there's other things that are not directly tied to your everyday use like dropbox, evernote, sandboxie,logmein,mediamonkey,gomplayer

Zascar

Wow, thanks Spunog, brilliant I'll check them out!!

Macers

Zascar wrote: »

Wow, thanks Spunog, brilliant I'll check them out!!

The painless way to do it - www.ninite.com

RolandIRL

Would also give Teracopy and Treesize Free a look as well.

Overheal

Launchy this is one of my fav programs for the last few years. Simply press a hot key and then type the name of the program you want rather than having a desktop shortcut or having to use the start menu. It just makes accessing everything so fast!

....you mean like, I would press a hotkey, say,



And I would type in the name of the program, like, calc? or Device Manager? And press enter? And it would run?

I'm pretty sure Vista and 7 do what Launchy does and probably are better at it.

Capt'n Midnight

Loved hot keys, just hated setting them up

Ctrl Alt X for excel etc.

once you get used to firing up and switching between apps with the keyboard you don't need the mouse as much

Odaise Gaelach

Don't forget that applications that are pinned to the taskbar can be opened, minimised and restored by pressing the Windows key and whichever number from the left it is on the taskbar.

So most people have Windows Explorer as the second item pinned to the taskbar. Windows + 2 will open it for you.

Overheal

Odaise Gaelach wrote: »

Don't forget that applications that are pinned to the taskbar can be opened, minimised and restored by pressing the Windows key and whichever number from the left it is on the taskbar.

So most people have Windows Explorer as the second item pinned to the taskbar. Windows + 2 will open it for you.

:eek:

Spunog UIE

Overheal wrote: »

....you mean like, I would press a hotkey, say,

And I would type in the name of the program, like, calc? or Device Manager? And press enter? And it would run?

I'm pretty sure Vista and 7 do what Launchy does and probably are better at it.

well as long as your pretty sure they probably do a better job. I now see the error of my ways :rolleyes:

Fysh

Spunog UIE wrote: »

well as long as your pretty sure they probably do a better job. I now see the error of my ways :rolleyes:

He does have a point in that the functionality you describe as being provided by Launchy is now OS-native. There may be stuff Launchy does that Windows 7 can't do natively, but I don't know what that might be. If you're suggesting Launchy as being worth having, it's not unreasonable for people ask why it's worth having.

Spunog UIE

Launchy imho has a much nicer presentation, and has a number of features that take it a step beyond the start menu in windows.

It does not rely solely on your start menu, you can specify not only folders but types of files in specified folders to be returned. Similarly you can setup shortcuts to launch websites. It also lets you setup shortcuts so that you type youtube and then your search criteria and it will jump right to it (you could also add additional requirements to be added automatically such as telling youtube to link to the hd content by default).

When you search for an item and select it it gives it greater priority for the next time you type it. For example the first time you run it you might need to type Photoshop to find it but the second time you could just press P and it would jump to Photoshop. It means you don't have to go and setup up a load of shortcuts they build up naturally over time.

There's other handy things like being able to type cmd prompt queries without ever having to open the console first. If you like portable apps, you can use it as a launcher on your usb stick/hdd for those portable apps in addition to the start menu items.

There are a number of shiny eye candy options which let you skin and theme it too so it looks great on your new system, and you get to place it where you want rather than having to go digging around in the start menu.

I've been using it since WinXP and it hasn't changed much which is testament to how well it has been put together. Overall I find it quicker, more intuitive, and much more than polished the new windows start menu.

---

Of course all I was really trying to do was mention a couple of programs that the original poster might be interested in checking out and let them decide for themselves if they were any good.

I am happy to answer a question about something I recommended, in fact, I prefer it rather than half-baked points made in a condescending manner. Just because some program is OS-native does not mean there are not better alternatives whose core functionality is the same. Internet browser anyone?! This internet is serious business.

Overheal

The links/searching and the direct CMD commands sounds interesting. You can add an address bar to the taskbar but it's not that powerful. You can basically just type URLs into the thing and store some bookmarks. You could add the google bar... but who the hell would ever do such a thing

For the most part though your start menu already does a good job of indexing all porgrams, windows admin functions, help files, music, documents, videos, etc.

At least you stick by your conviction - as written though your original reccomendation sounded like something completely OS native

Will_H

Macers wrote: »

The painless way to do it - www.ninite.com

Even more painless way to do it: http://www.filehippo.com/updatechecker/