I see many people ask how to speed up Windows Operating System or improve Windows start up times and have to tell you that nothing bugs me more than all these applications that inject “auto updates” or monitors that run when you start your Windows operating system. You could download and install various freeware or paid programs to cleanup your Windows start programs but you can also do it with the default MSConfig utility which exists in Windows 7, Windows Vista and Windows XP. The MSConfig utility lets you scroll through all of your startup programs and disable the ones that you don’t need to start when Windows boots.

Here is my video tutorial on how to trim your Windows 7 Startup Programs:

Your Windows OS will load faster and you may see better performance overall as less programs load and have to consume memory and CPU space. You only need a handful of startup programs and I do recommend you keep your Firewall, Antivirus and other security programs always running at boot. Most other startup programs will check for updates when you load the program you need so there is no reason to run it as a startup program.

-Dragon Blogger

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Windows comes with a rollback feature (it keeps cached copies of system files/drivers and other essentials) so that in event of a crash,the last defined restore point can be loaded to bring back Windows to it’s normal state.

If you wish to disable system restore here are the steps :

How:

1. Right click on My Computer icon and go to Properties.

2. Select System Protection.

3. Partitions that have the system restore will be ticked(D: in this example).

4. Uncheck the needed partitions and there should pop up a warning message.

5. Select “Turn System Protection Off”.

Done.

Cheers.

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The PC Magazine review of Office 2010 shows us that not much changes with the interface but new video options for Powerpoint are a welcome change, but there is also online document collaboration with web based versions of the Office 2010 suite.  If you are interested in joining the Office 2010 beta you can download the full Microsoft Office 2010 Beta here.

The PC Mag article is pretty thorough and includes a screenshot difference between the old file menu and the new menu.

-Dragon Blogger

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The search bar in Windows 7 is one of the best features right off the bat, it allows you to both search for programs, documents and any files on your system, but also acts as your “start -> run” bar did on Windows Vista, XP or 2000.

So you can just click on your search bar and type:
regedit.exe

and your registry editor will open,

Or type iTunes and it will show you all programs, files and folders that match or are associated with that “name”.

It is also lightning fast at showing results matching what you are looking for.

With Windows 7 default search bar built right into the Windows button, there is almost no need to use or install Google Desktop or other 3rd party search programs for basic search needs.

-Dragon Blogger

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