1. Clean Up The Hard Drive
Remove unwanted files, like temp files, downloaded program files, recycle bin, etc. You could useDisk Cleanup option to do this, as follows:
- Click Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Disk Cleanup
- The system will first calculate how much space can be freed up this way. In the Disk Cleanupwindow (refer figure) that appears, select the files in that need to be deleted under the Files to delete list.
- For deleting ‘System Restore‘ and ‘Shadow copy‘ files, click "Clean up system files" and then on "More Options" tab
- Finally click OK. You’ll be prompted again before the deletion. Click Yes.
2. Enable Write Caching On Device
This is an option which allows the OS to flush changed data to the hard disk when the system is idle, so that performance is not affected when in use. For enabling this, do the following:
- Press Windows key and while holding it down, press Pause/Break key.
- In the window that appears, click on Device Manager in the left hand pane.
- In the next window that appears, expand Disk drives.
- The drop-down list will show the hard drive. Right-click on it and select Properties.
- Click the Policies tab in the Device Properties window (refer figure).
- Check the box next to "Enable write caching on the device"
- You can as well check the box next to "Turn off Windows write-cache buffer flushing on the device" and then click OK.
Note: However, there is one disadvantage in enabling these options – if there is a power outage or a system crash, data might be lost or corrupted. If you have a secondary power supply, like a UPS, you could go ahead with checking these options.
3. Perform Disk Defragmentation
When there is no sufficient space to store in a hard drive, the OS splits the file into parts and stores it in different areas on the hard drive. Defragmenting allows all these parts to be stored in contiguous memory locations. For defragmenting disk do the following:
- Click Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Disk Defragmenter
- In the window (refer figure) that appears, click on the drive that you want to defragment and then click Analyze disk.
- This will estimate the time required for the process. When done click on Defragment disk.
- Once done you can either View Report or click Close.
These pretty much sum up the small things that you can do, to make a big difference to your Windows 7′s performance. If you have some personal tips you’ve done yourself to improve the performances, we’d like to hear from you.
