Windows® 7 Secrets®

Chapter 6. Personalizing and Configuring Windows 7

In This Chapter

• Customizing the Start menu

• Configuring folders

• Replacing Windows 7's compressed folders with something useful

• Replacing the user interface

• Branding Windows 7

• "Decrapifying" your PC

• Making Windows 7 boot faster

• Improving Windows 7's performance

• Monitoring Windows 7's reliability

• Customizing Virtual Memory

• Utilizing ReadyBoost

• Adding more RAM to a Windows 7–based PC

Windows 7 is the most capable version of Windows yet created, with an unprecedented collection of useful application software and a technically impressive and elegant user interface. Of course, Windows 7 is just software, so it's not perfect; and depending on your needs or wants, you may prefer to customize Windows 7 to make it your own and to have it provide a more comfortable environment for your day-to-day work. This chapter presents a collection of ways to personalize and customize Microsoft's latest operating system.

Virtually anytime you see words like personalize and customize—or, heaven forbid, tweak—used together with Windows, you can expect Microsoft's most controversial tool, the Registry Editor, to raise its ugly head. Well, we're not going down that road. Life is too short to waste an entire chapter of this book—not to mention hours of your life—teaching you how to spelunk around the archaic and arcane depths of Windows' bowels. Sure, you'll see a handful of references to the Registry Editor in this book—in this chapter even—but only when no simpler alternatives ...