Popping my Win7 cherry
mod
Alright, so after using XP 64 for a number of years, I've made the switch over to Win 7. I skipped the whole Vista nonsense, so I feel i'm a bit out of the loop when it comes to setting Win 7 up. What utilities to use, what features to disable, what new features are really useful.
So please, feel free to give suggestions to a Win 7 noob as far as how it should be set up.
Ideally I'd like this to look and feel as much like XP or whatever, i'm running the classic windows theme(I dont care about web2.0 interface shit).
How do I get a proper quick launch tab?
I've got the taskbar icons set to small but they're pretty tiny now, and I feel like I could fit about 30 of them on screen. I'd like them to be wider, but not real tall using up screen space.... Anything I can do about that? Again more like classic windows UI.
I'm sure i'll have more questions as I dig into it.
So please, feel free to give suggestions to a Win 7 noob as far as how it should be set up.
Ideally I'd like this to look and feel as much like XP or whatever, i'm running the classic windows theme(I dont care about web2.0 interface shit).
How do I get a proper quick launch tab?
I've got the taskbar icons set to small but they're pretty tiny now, and I feel like I could fit about 30 of them on screen. I'd like them to be wider, but not real tall using up screen space.... Anything I can do about that? Again more like classic windows UI.
I'm sure i'll have more questions as I dig into it.
Replies
Edit: I suppose you could try this http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/888-quick-launch-enable-disable.html
Now when I am animating a character, to get the the max files I just tap the Windows Key then start typing the name of the character. All the files and folders that match the name pop up in the search results rather quickly.
As far as the Areo interface, I keep it turned on for the alt-tab thumbnails.
cryrid,
To show desktop just hit Win+D.
(Monster was faster, saw that after posting:))
Things i like to mention are the snapping features(win+right snaps the current window to the right half of the screen,win+left to the left and win+up maximizes it)
If you use a tablet you should disable the tablet services of windows, because they can be a hassle sometimes(or even make the quad menus flicker in 3dsmax or slow it down.)
I just thought that was entertaining.
While it´s true that it is entertaining, i really don´t see any practical use.It´s a feature which i never used once.
If i want controls like shaking my controlling device i play with my wii(or ps3 with move):poly142:
So I had Aero disabled and was trying to do this... Nothing...
Thought it was some sort of hazing. But it works now with an Aero theme loaded =D
I also enabled the quick launch icons because I missed them. Google helped me do that... If you have ultimate, file passwords are nice along with encryption, because people try to steal your Internets all the time... But seriously if you cart around USB drives or shuttle files around through things like dropbox its good to protect them especially if they're work related. Some employers will BBQ your balls others trust their employees it all depends.
Collecting a few images in a folder and setting your desktop background to use that folder will cycle through the images. Not that I ever see my desktop except for .2 sec in the morning and before I go home... but still kind of cool.
I actually use the desktop gadgets, mostly the notepad to keep track of tasks and time. There are some other handy gadgets you can download so they might be worth looking into.
It may sound stupid but the parental controls can help keep people on task by limiting the which apps can be going for how long. I've heard a few people using this to ween themselves off of distractions.
You can drag the a window over to the side of the screen(till the mouse hits the side) and it will resize and fit it to half the screen. Its a good way of getting dual pane file browser without using third party software.
edit: Dont bother with Windows search or Windows copy. These work much better.
http://www.easersoft.com/
http://www.voidtools.com/
This!
Everything is so freaking fast.:poly142:
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-desktop/dynamic-pen-feedback-in-windows-7-cant-turn-off/7152da79-7c00-4af7-bb9a-c69f5dd3b3f8
I use Teracopy to replace the default Win7 copy.
If you haven't heard about Aero snap yet, IMO it's the most crucial change in the interface. You can drag a window to the left/right or top side of the screen so it snaps to lefthalf/righthalf/fullscreen. This doesn't work properly with multimonitor setups (because it doesn't snap to where the screens meet) but there's another way:
[win]+[arrow keys]. It's sorta hard to explain all shortcuts because they're context based, so just have a play around with them. But basically [win]+[left/right] sort of scrolls to snapping positions, while [win]+[up/down] toggle fullscreen.
Also, if you don't care about all the glitter, I could give you the files I used to customize the interface. It looks somewhat like this (tweaked a bit since that screenshot):
Or use this:
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=78303
direct link to the file:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1114083/TabletPCbeGentle.bat
Well, not to be argumentative, but i'm not switching to win7 for UI tweaks, but:
better driver support, xp64 is pretty dead
better cpu/ram usage, again XP 64 isn't too great with a quad core and 8 gigs of ram
optimized for SSD
No longer having the XP syndrome of your computer getting slower and slower over time - I've been told this is less of an issue with Win7 atleast
etc etc
I'm going to play around with Aero a bit more, but I hope the UI in win7 isn't the only reason people use it =P
Thanks for all the posts so far guys, I'll be looking at everything a bit more indepth soon.
Then a 250GB WD black drive, I think i'll install my apps and crap on this? Or would I see a major benifit from loading photoshop/modo/etc onto the SSD? I feel like i'd be better off having the large working art files on the SSD, and apps on a slower drive. I think how fast I can load a 200mb PSD file is more important than how quickly photoshop opens, but maybe I misunderstand entirely.
And a 600gb or so drive that i'll use for mp3s/archived work files/etc....
Should I keep a small portion of the SSD for vmem or something?
This is why defrag is not recommended for ssd´s and turned of for it on windows 7 by default.
Edit: Regarding to microsoft ssd´s are especially good for using it as a pagefile, because most of the time you read from it(like 40 times more reading than writing)
You should also disable Prefetch andSuperFetch.(if it´s not, win7 should handle that itself)
This was a big one for me I had a hard time getting some programs to run with this on. All good after shutting it down
Well I'm not saying that aero is really that great. I didnt go for windows 7 for the see through windows, bought a new system what you gonna do? But I've looked into the plus and minus points and aero doesnt detrimentally effect things as the heretics would have you believe. Even having a few gadgets doesnt impact performance.
You should turn of disk indexing thing as well if your using an SSD or just in general because its crap.
I'd use the SSD for the OS and the important apps that you want to boot fast, not the files.
All this programs are pretty useless.
Registry Defrag - You don´t get speedup´s and it can be very dangerous
Ram Defrag - pretty darn useless
Most tweaks in this programs - you guessed it ->useless
Best alternative: brain.exe
Just let windows do it´s thing without letting programs fiddle with the registry and stuff, seriously...
When I was looking for answers to a problem I was having (the answer is to upgrade to 7), I came across a lot of people saying "You don't need to tweak xp like you did with 2000." I also seem to remember people saying that a lot when going from 98 to 2k. (No one says anything about ME or Vista.) I can't comment on the veracity of the statement, I just thought it was worth pointing out that it seems to be a common theme.
Anyway, I recently build a new rig with a 128 gig SSD, and have my OS and all my apps on it. Everything runs like butter and opens super fast. I'm no tech expert, but I would recommend going that route.
http://www.fastpictureviewer.com/blog/2010/07/optimize-windows-performance/
If Perna hasnt allready mentioned it to you go get 'fast picture viewer codec pack' it gives you RAW previews in explorer, along with HDR, DDS, PSD and all the other major file formats. its stable and fast. He mentioned it in another thread and its epic.
Be honest, does a fresh installed xp or vista or win 7 really need any tweaks to run smooth?
Even XP doesn´t need any tweaks to run smooth.Almost every tweak is more like a placebo then a real tweak.There may be some which seem to make things faster but there is no real speedup.
@SeanEG: i wouldn´t put every app on my ssd, just the ones most used, because the more you put on it the slower it gets.
Also, as i said, disabling useless startup programs may be a "must tweak", because installing apps such as photoshop cs5, or logitech mouse drivers, you found your start up is bloated with crap executables that don't do anything except eating resources. Furthermore, the windows load time is higher.
Ahh, a fresh install of windows does not need tweaks to run smooth in actual machines, but don't forget that windows always comes with crap we don't need. When we install, uninstall, install, uninstall, we can make things a little slower (there's always fragmentation, not deleted files and unstopped services, and we may have a system tray full of useless icons and apps loaded into memory), something that in actual machines does not bother at all.
Yeah, perna has a nice setup for the thumbs in windows, that's a great tweak.
It not things like that.Cleaning your startup is also legit no problem there but you don´t need any programs for that.just msconfig and you are ready to roll.
It´s always good to defrag from time to time, again you really don´t need external programs for that(There are very rare cases where you could need one)
This so called tuning programs are just placebos or things which can make tasks easier you can do in windows without them.
So called gaming modes can be done with simple batch files which don´t need much space and don´t need registry entries.
It´s not like i didn´t use this programs before, but there was no "speedup" i got in comparison to doing common tasks by hand.
Schedule it every day. first day is a pain, after which you will never notice it again.
I kind of agree with spectre, msconfig and services.msc give you alot of control. I used to repair computers and alot of the problems came from people downloading optimisation tools.
I think the only thing that matters is whether or not your day to day apps run well on the OS. The only reason for me to still keep XPpro64 is because max2009 just runs better on it than on anything else (and 2010 and 2011 are out of the question). CS5 runs beautifully on 7 tho. So, I think that max2012 with its great viewport improvements will be the turning point really.
Snader, could you possibly post your UI files ? I am usually not a fan of UI tweaks further than the default options available, but your skin seems to be nice and low key, less intrusive than the default look actually. Do want!
Do SSDs even need defrag ? I've been running a dual SSD+HDD storage setup for about 2 years now and it does not seem to slow down at all. I used to rely on the HD noises to tell if I need to defrag in the past, but since SSDs dont spin I am blissfully ignoring the issue now haha.
And yeah, snader's theme look pretty slick, I would love to use it too
EQ you just need stop useless service and table service all u need and switch windows basic theme
I guess my point is that, coming from XP there is no huge change in the UI interection with win7 after all, and that's totally fine with me. I like to optimize my workflow and work as smart as possible, but to me this mostly resides outside the OS itself. That is to say, optimising my workflow inside the actual apps I am using, relying a lot on web based services for instant access to my references, and so on. (Delicious, Dropbox, Visualize, Ilisthings ...)
All I need is Win-D, alt-Tab, and a few shortcuts on my desktop
I wish there was a way to preview files the MacOS way tho - simply hitting spacebar to preview an image, play a movie, have a look at a text document, then spacebar again to close it. Fantastic feature!
No it´s not outdated, it´s just that newer ssd´s have much more write cycles and algorithms to lengthen it´s lifetime.
It´s true that it´s not that important anymore, but the fact that it wears of faster with many writes is still up to date.
I don´t say that you should keep everything to it´s minimum, but tossing everything at it isn´t what i would suggest either.
But dont quote me on this, I haven't done *that* much research into it.
I have to admit defeat, the numbers i had in mind where false/old in this case.
I have an OCZ Vertex2 which is not one of the newest types out there, maybe i thought like that, because i read articles about it back then
If you want to know why just got in max and show fps move around a 1mil poly sphere with wireframe turned on and then turn off aero and test it.
For me i get a huge increase in fps when aero is off.
I use windows Basic theme with this skin, Its easy to add and looks good too.
In my personal experience, though, the answer is often yes... I did a clean install of 7 this morning and hardlocked the system before I was finished reinstalling software. I don't consider that smooth. That's probably really just me though -- I have a natural talent for breaking computers. Building my own computer may color my perspective as well. I don't get the bloatware that many computer manufacturers like to include, but it does mean I have to get under the hood of my software as well as the hardware when I set things up.
That's outdated too. Last time I saw this happen was 2 years ago, with Max2009 + Vista combo. It's been fixed for while.
And yeah Icon, no matter what the hype says win7 is bound to be loaded with useless services, that's just the nature of things. It just happens that on a decent machine, it's hardly noticeable and not really worth the trouble digging in. (talking about a clean install with a disc image straight from the MS online shop, not one of these horrible setups installed on assembled computers.)
I find it all heavily dependent on the hardware, and again SSDs are great for that. My home machine, theoretically much slower than my work computer, still boots up the fastest and in general behaves smoother.
Earthquake said he doesn't care about the aesthetics and wants better performance. I have heard from people that aero sometimes crashes/slows Fusion and Nuke and personally experienced problems within the UDK and max. I would much rather have it switched off completely then worry about it being a problem.
switching it off was just a suggestion
thats what happened to my ancient ssd
I didn´t mean that it happens automatically like with 2009+vista.I meant that you can enable that to have aero enabled all the time but disabled for 3dsmax.
Provides a quick way to disable a list of unwanted services and features ( you can make your own list ) and with one click you can roll back in a instant.