Posts Tagged ‘Windows 7 Tips’

After recently taking a trip to Salt Lake City, UT, I decided it was finally time to invest in a netbook. I’m never one to run out and invest in the latest and greatest as soon as a craze hits, but nothing is worse than trying to work on a 15″ laptop while sitting on a plane in roach class… although, I must say, you *do* learn how to be all sorts of resourceful (we’re talkin’ MacGyver-level, here) with how you achieve your tasks! I can only imagine how funny I must have looked, sitting there in my window seat, all cramped with my headphones in, watching a movie with the bottom of my laptop resting on my chest and the back of the screen folded out, resting in my forearms. If you can’t picture it, don’t worry. All you need to know is that I felt like I was primed for some clown car shenanigans afterwords.

So, with that experience being the straw that broke the camel’s back, I decided to purchase the following Windows 7 netbook after much deliberation: ASUS Eee PC Seashell 1005HA Netbook w/Windows 7 Starter

Specifications:

OS: Windows 7 Starter Operating System (32-Bit)
CPU: 1.66GHz Intel Atom N280 Processor
RAM: 1GB DDR2 RAM (Only 1 SODIMM Slot)
HDD: 250GB SATA Hard Drive (5400RPM)
Display: 10.1″ WSVGA 1024×600 LCD Display
Communications: Bluetooth, Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n
Input/Output: 1 VGA, 3 USB 2.0 ports, 1 LAN RJ-45, Headphone & Mic-in Jacks
Webcam: 0.3 MP (Only the best! lol)
Battery Life: 10.5 Hours of Battery Life (Thanks to ASUS’ “Super Hybrid Engine” technology)

Now, while the point of having a netbook isn’t to have a performance monster, the hacker inside of me wanted to see just what I could do to improve upon what I received, be it enhancements, tweaks, or even just adding a bit of fun to the netbook mix! The following are the steps I’ve taken to make this thing perform exactly like I want it to. I had numerous goals in mind, so it will be left up to you to find your happy medium.

1 – Upgrade RAM

The first thing I did was upgrade my RAM from 1GB to 2GB. The difference truly is noticable. Since the netbook I have only contains one slot for RAM, I had to order a 2GB stick and replace the stock 1GB stick. Another beautiful thing about my netbook is how they made it with easily accessing the RAM slot in mind. With many netbooks, you have to take them completely apart to upgrade the RAM. Even worse, they typically place a sticker over one of the screws which voids the warranty if tampered with. Not so with this netbook! It has its own spiffy little compartment. Check it out:

Alternately, you can use a ridiculously helpful tip detailing a great, overlooked feature which I’ve provided later in this guide. Feel free to have a look at that tip now by clicking here, if you would like!

2 – Upgrade Your HDD

An idea you might consider is replacing your hard drive with an SSD or a high-storage capacity drive. The SSD solution is hella expensive these days (if you want anything over 16-32 GB), so I wouldn’t recommend it unless your nickname is, “Money Bags.” I don’t know about you, but that’s certainly not my nickname, so I doubt I’ll be going for that. You can land 640GB laptop drives for ~$100-$150 – even if it means buying something like this, then taking it apart to remove the drive for use. Personally, I have a 250 GB drive in my netbook, so I’m not too worried about upgrading it anytime soon. With that said, I thought this point was worth mentioning.

3 – Upgrade from Windows 7 Starter to Windows 7 Home/Pro/Ultimate

Personally, I’m a stickler for customization… and Windows 7 Starter is about as useful for customization as B.A.S.E. jumping is without a parachute, i.e., not very. Since I had a copy of Windows 7 Ultimate laying around, I installed it. If you’re wondering just how I went about doing that without the aid of a CD/DVD-ROM drive, on my Dell XPS laptop, I used a program called UltraISO to create an ISO from the installation DVD. Then, I transferred that image and UltraISO to my netbook via USB. Once there, I installed UltraISO, used its virtual CD/DVD-ROM to mount the ISO, and then I chose to do a clean installation.

Alternately, you could install Windows 7 via a USB drive. To do that, you first need to make sure your USB drive is formatted as FAT32 (at least an 8GB USB device is recommended).

To check that, go to My Computer, right-click on your USB drive and select, “Format…” (don’t worry, it’s not going to format your drive by selecting that). Look where it says, “File system.” If it says anything other than FAT32 (such as NTFS or FAT), then you will want to format it.

USB Format Options

To do this, select FAT32 from the drop-down box and click, “Start.” It shouldn’t take long at all. By the way, the reason for this is due to the size of the file, “install.wim.” NTFS refuses to play nicely with very large files on a USB device.

Now that you have a shiny, new FAT32 file system on your USB device, copy the contents of your Windows 7 ISO or DVD directly over to your USB device. Once that’s finished, all you need to do is rename the file, “BOOTMGR” to, “NTLDR” and that’s it! Now, make sure your netbook is set to boot from USB (you choose this in your BIOS settings) and you’ll be golden… Richards (ever seen the movie, “I Love You, Man”? If not, then the, “golden… Richards” thing will make absolutely no sense to you, but that’s okay. lol). Also, don’t forget to install any and all drivers provided with your netbook.

ASUS Eee PC Users: If you choose to do a clean install of Windows 7, make sure you install all of your drivers and DO NOT FORGET the Super Hybrid Engine! It helps to drastically extend your battery life, so don’t forget it!

Okay, let’s go ahead and dispel some tweaking myths right up front: Read this, this, and this. Now we’re ready to be productive in our tweaking methods without spending a bunch of time disabling a bunch of stuff that you really don’t benefit from disabling in the first place! And like I said before, these are simply my preferences. I do some of the things below just to suit my needs as a user; not just to chase enhancing performance or battery life.

1 – (Tip) Disable System Sounds

Personally, I don’t like having system sounds enabled. This is more of a preference than anything. If you want to disable sounds (you don’t have to disable ALL sounds; you can pick and choose through the list), then right-click on the volume speaker icon in your system tray (next to your clock), select, “Sounds,” then from the drop-down box where it says, “Windows Default,” select, “No Sounds.” If you have no volume icon in your system tray, click the Start button, got to Control Panel, click, “Hardware and Sound,” then click, “Change system sounds,” and then follow the rest of the steps above.

2 – (Tweak) Speed Up Boot Time

If you don’t have multiple operating systems on your netbook and you don’t care about watching the boot animation, click the Start button, type, “msconfig” in the search box, then hit enter. When the System Configuration window pops up, click the tab that says, “Boot.” Now, check the box that says, “No GUI boot,” then, where it says, “Timeout,” set that value to 0. If it tells you to set a value of 3 or more, just hit okay and apply your changes so the, “No GUI boot” sticks. To set that value to 0 (which provides either good comedy or major annoyance, depending on how you look at it, to have the same setting in 2 different places while, yet one doesn’t allow the change) , right-click on My Computer, then click, “Properties.” Now, click where it says, “Advanced system settings,” and then click the, “Settings…” button in the, “Startup and Recovery” section. Uncheck the box that says, “Time to display list of operating systems” and then click okay. Now, you’re good to go.

No GUI Boot

System Properties

Operating System List Time

3 – (Tip) Disable Wireless/Bluetooth

When you’re not using your wireless or bluetooth adapters, disabling them can help to conserve battery power considerably, depending on how well your OEM’s chipset and BIOS performs for your netbook. Typically, you can do this by holding the function key (Fn on the keyboard) and hitting the key designated for your wireless/bluetooth device(s). For me, that key is the F2 key (these designated keys are also known as, “hotkeys,” so if it doesn’t work for you, you may need to install the hotkey drivers provided with your netbook). Here’s a picture of my netbook’s hotkey combination:

4 – (Tweak) Disable AERO and Effects

Now, the whole point for me with installing Windows 7 Ultimate was to GAIN the features I’m about to tell you to potentially disable, so although I don’t leverage any of the following, you may very well want to. As such, the first thing you want to do is right-click on My Computer, then click, “Properties.” Now, click where it says, “Advanced system settings,” and then click the, “Settings…” button in the, “Performance” section. If you’re a performance buff, select, “Adjust for best performance.” That will pretty much disable all things, “eye candy” and leave you with a little boost in battery life. Personally, I select, “Custom” and check everything except for, “Enable Aero Peek” and, “Save taskbar thumbnail previews.” Honestly, I have no use for Aero Peek and it only gets in the way sometimes when my mouse pointer ends up over in that corner and makes everything disappear when I don’t want it to (minor annoyance).

System Properties

Performance Options

5- (Tip) Throttle Battery Usage

See the battery icon down in your system tray? Learn how to throttle your system’s power consumption by selecting Power Saver, Balanced, or High Performance depending on the task(s) you’re performing at any given time. If you’re typing a document, try Power Saver. If you’re running Photoshop, go with High Performance. Another tip is to pay attention to Screen Brightness. Even in High Performance mode, reducing your screen brightness will help to conserve more battery power than keeping it as bright as it goes. In other words, don’t just pick High Performance and stick with it until your battery goes dead!

Power Options

6 – (Hot Tip!) Take your Netbook Beyond the 2GB RAM Limitation!

And now, the most exciting tip of all! For those of you who actually have a need for more than 2GB RAM on your netbook, an incredibly over-looked feature is Windows ReadyBoost; a service within Windows 7 (and Vista) that allows you to essentially add RAM to your system on-the-fly by utilizing flash media! It’s ridiculously simple to set up. All you need is a USB flash drive or an SD card (I prefer the SD card and I’ll explain why in a second). After you plug in whichever of the two you choose, go to My Computer, the right-click on the drive letter of your flash device and choose, “Properties.” Now, click the, “ReadyBoost” tab, select, “Use this device,” then click Apply. You can allocate however much or little memory to RAM that you choose. This is GREAT for using applications like Photoshop.

Windows 7 ReadyBoost

Now, remember how I said I prefer to use an SD card? The reason for that is two-fold. First, I happen to have an extra 2GB SD card that I haven’t used in a year or two. Now, this gives me something to use it for. Second, if you use a USB drive, it takes up a USB port and the USB device protrudes out, making it a potential hassle or minor annoyance by needing to plug it in and unplug it every time you want to use Windows ReadyBoost. Well, with an SD card, you can plug that sucker in, set up Windows ReadyBoost, and – if you would like – have that SD card always be used for ReadyBoost at boot-up by selecting, “Dedicate this device to ReadyBoost.” No protruding device, no needing to think about it any longer. Just more RAM than currently installed in your system. This is also super-helpful for those of you who don’t have the cash to fork over for an extra stick of RAM!

And now, my favorite part of this guide: Fun factors! That’s right, games. Skipping straight to it, I’m pleased to give you some stellar ideas for transforming your netbook into an all-in-one, portable gaming solution. Yes, you can relive the magic of some of those old PC games you loved in the late 90′s (considering how comparable a netbook is compared to even some of the top-of-the-line desktops back then), play flash games, play modern low-profile games (such as Bejeweled, Luxor, et al), and even dust off those old console emulators and ROM collections you haven’t touched in a while! To get your creative juices flowing, here are some ideas I have already implemented (in no particular order):

1 – Quake 3 Arena: Man, this game runs on *everything*. I can throw it at my up-to-date x64 Quad-Core, 8GB RAM, w/4GB GPU RAM system, or at this lowly netbook and it absolutely runs like a champ! Not to mention, if you take this netbook somewhere and fire up Q3A, everyone’s going to be jealous. Mwah ha ha. A good tip for installing Quake 3 is you can either transfer the installation files off the CD to a USB device, then install it on your netbook from there, or – since Quake 3 Arena doesn’t depend on anything outside of its installation folder – you can just install it on a laptop and copy over the installed game folder to your netbook. Then, you don’t have to worry about the extra step of having to copy the installation files to the USB device! Check out the video below of me playing it on my netbook to see just how well it performs. Sorry for how washed out the color of the video is, but it serves the purpose. Also, I’ve put a side-by-side comparison of my netbook with my Dell XPS 15″ laptop. You don’t really get a feel for just how small this netbook is in the video (but even still, the screen is plenty big enough to play the game comfortably):

2 – Thief, Thief Gold and Theif 2: Before Deus Ex, Assassins Creed, and other stealth games, there was Thief. I freakin’ loved the Thief series. Though Thief froze on me only once, it works great! Thief 2 took a bit more coaxing for me, though. You can either try a No-CD patch or you can edit your DARKINST.CFG file and change all references to the location of your installation. Let’s use c:\program files\thief2 as our example here. Your DARKINST.CFG file should be changed to read as follows:

cd_path c:\program files\
install_path c:\program files\thief2
language english
resname_base c:\program files\thief2\res+i:\thief2
load_path c:\program files\thief2
script_module_path c:\program files\thief2
movie_path c:\program files\thief2\movies

Lastly, in c:\program files\thief2, create a new ZIP file and rename it to SND.CRF (not SND.CRF.zip – you don’t want the .zip on the end).

3 – Emulators and ROMs: If you REALLY want to make your friends and family jealous, go download (or dust off) all the emulators and ROMs from your favorite gaming systems of the past… but don’t stop there! Head over to RetroZone, where you can order USB adapters for controllers from the following console systems: NES, SNES, N64, Genesis, Atari and Vectrex! Now, the next time you’re going to a family get together, heading to hang out at a friend’s, or flying out of town, you can be the envy of everyone when they see your sexy netbook running some 8-bit Mario 3 hotness! Tanooki suit, here we come!

4 – Modern Low-Profile Games: Well, I don’t really know what to call these types of games, but they’re the ones you can buy (or download free, you naughty people) from sites like PopCap Games (man, you OWE IT TO YOURSELF to check out Peggle! Trust me… that game is freakin’ addictive), BigFish Games and Hidden Object Games. A netbook is *perfect* for these types of games. The reason I call these, “low-profile” games is because they typically don’t take much to run, nor do they take up a whole lot of space on your hard drive. They’re quick-fix games that you can load right up and shut right down.

5 – Flash Games: We’ve all seen the flash games. If, by chance, you happen to have been living under a rock since Al Gore helped to create this thing we call, “the innanets,” head on over to the massive, massively-successful Kongregate, where you can play a bajillion flash games, all for free. With a netbook’s small form factor, there’s something oddly satisfying about having a flash game maximized on your screen and it still looking decent (i.e. not pixelated to death). And to get you into the spirit of flash games, try this one on for size (keep your mouse away from the guy):

Directions for what to click to start the game below this image:

 

Keep your mouse away for as long as you can!

Alright, so, now that you’ve got the idea, go bust out your favorite oldies and give ‘em a shot! Feel free to post your questions here if you have any issues with a particular game not working. Let us know your netbook make/model, which OS it has, and what the problem is and if no one can help you out, I’ll try to steer you in the right direction or find the solution myself (no guarantees, though)!

To end the, “fun factors” section, I’d like to share a Windows 7 netbook theme I’ve cooked up (and currently use) called, “Goomba.” And no, it’s not at all obvious why I named it as such.

Click Here to Download the Windows 7 Netbook Goomba Theme!

In summary, I’d like to remind everyone that Windows 7 was built with performance in mind, so instead of trying to improve the performance of the OS to the point where it will run Crysis on your netbook (wouldn’t that be a dream), this guide really just focuses on prolonging battery life, increasing performance when using it under load (such as, if you load Photoshop or something of that nature), and how to just plain have fun with the darn thing! For a regular laptop, I don’t worry about performing even so much as a quarter of the information provided in this article… well, besides the fun factor stuff, that is.

Hey, if you have any additional hints/tips, feel free to share them with us in the comments section! I would love to hear your feedback and suggestions. Thanks for reading and I hope you found at least *something* helpful within this huge page of text!

-Stephen
http://msftkitchen.com