Computer Help Blog

Windows 7, the latest OS from Microsoft, is definitely better than Windows Vista. It is faster and offers better performance, but you can make it even more faster by tweaking it. Here are 3 useful ways to improve the speed and performance of Windows 7:

1) Disable unnecessary visual effects
To disable unnecessary visual effects, right click on “Computer” in windows start menu and choose “Properties”. Click on “Advanced System Settings” at the left pane. Under the “Advanced” tab, click on “Settings” under “Performance” category. Select the “Custom:” option. Look through the list and uncheck the effects that you have no used for it.

2) Disable Windows Aero theme
Windows Aero offers better performance in Win 7 when compared to Vista. However, it still takes up a large amount of resources. You can disable it to obtain better performance. To do so, right click on the desktop and select “Personalize”. Chose one of the standard themes from the right hand side. “Windows 7 Basic” is a good choice.

3) Remove unwanted items from startup menu
Windows automatically adds unwanted items to the startup menu which slows it down. By removing unwanted items from the startup menu, you can make Windows 7 faster. Here is how, you proceed: Press Windows key + R and type “msconfig” in the run dialogue box.  Go to the Startup tab. Uncheck the applications that you have no use for.

If you accidentally deleted some files or folders from your hard disk, and if they were sent to the Recycle Bin, you can get them back, provided that you don’t empty the Recycle Bin first. You have three ways to do that:

- To put all items bck where they were, click Restore all items in the toolbar.
- To put a single item back where it was, right-click its icon and choose Restore.
- Optionally, you can select multiple icons, right-click any selected icon, and choose Restore to put all those selected items back where they were.

Each file and folder you restore will be returned to its original location.

If you empty the Recycle Bin, you will need a data recovery software such as Recuva to recover deleted files.

Note: If you securely delete or “shred” files using a specialized software, it is simply impossible to recover the files.