Windows® 7 Tweaks: A Comprehensive Guide on Customizing, Increasing Performance, and Securing Microsoft® Windows 7

Chapter 3. Safe Tweaking

Now that you have Windows 7 installed, or your computer came with Windows 7 pre-installed, you are almost ready to start tweaking. This chapter first talks about the safe way to tweak and customize your computer. There are many tweaks, tips, and secrets that can create severe problems if you accidentally miss a step. That is why this is a good time to discuss some of the ways you should protect your computer, so you can easily undo any tweak that causes problems for your computer.

To get started, you will create Restore Points that allow you to take a configuration snapshot to easily jump back to a prior state. Then this chapter covers Windows Backup to protect your data, and Startup Repair to automatically fix issues that may prevent Windows 7 from starting up.

Using System Restore

System Restore has been in Windows for almost 10 years, but it has matured into something very valuable for any power user who tweaks his computer. Every time you make a change there is a risk that something could go wrong. Wouldn't it be nice if you could easily undo any change with just a few clicks? System Restore is the solution to that problem by allowing you to jump back in time to an earlier state.

In the next sections I show you how to create Restore Points before you tweak and then how to restore to a previous state if something goes wrong.

Creating Restore Points

Restore Points in Windows can be created a number of ways. Every time you install new software, Windows automatically ...