How to speed up Windows 7

Even if I have fast hardware I like to speed up my Windows, this is how I do it.

1. Disable visual effects. Go to Control Panel -> system -> advanced system settings -> visual settings and apply like this:

The last ones are also selected. Now your windows still looks fine and peek option is allowed. 

2. Disable transparency from personalization menu. You can also remove play windows start sound from the sound options to speed up things a little bit

3. Disable unwanted services. Type services.msc into start menu, if you dont use windows search very often look for windows search and disable it

4. Select High performance power plan.

These are the things I like to do. You can also use faster internet browser like Chrome, use lighter antivirus software like Avast and remove password from your account to save up few seconds if no one else use the computer. Also upgrading hardware is the biggest thing. Double your RAM memory, change to SSD hard drive etc.

How To Bring Back Missing Hibernate Option In Windows 7

I noticed my computer is missing the good old hibernate function where current session is saved to hard disk instead of ram and then powered off. So here is how to bring it back!

1. Press start menu and write cmd
2. Right click and run as administrator

3. In command prompt type: powercfg /hibernate on

4. This should enable hibernate function in shutdown menu

5. If it doesn't appear you need to turn off hybrid sleep from power options. Go to Control Panel -> Power options  -> change plan settings (choose current plan) -> change advanced power settings -> and there under sleep turn off hybrid sleep and hibernate option should be visible!

How To Make User Automatically Logon To Windows 7

If you need to set some user login automatically to the computer or just want to save some time, open advanced user accounts settings by pressing start menu and typing netplwiz

Select the user you want to automatically login in the Users tab, then uncheck the box next to Users must enter a user name and password to use this computer.

Click on the Apply button at the bottom of the User. 

Leave password blank and press OK.

Now this account automatically logs in on the next reboot.

Image from google. Not mine.

How to change Windows 7 login screen keyboard layout

I had to change the default keyboard layout from English to Finnish. This is how to do it on Windows 7 professional.

Open regedit by pressing start menu and typing regedit. Press enter.

Then locate: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Keyboard Layout\Preload

1. There should be at least string named default. If it is the only one, press mouse right button under it and add new string value, give the value name 1. If the value is already there skip this part.

2. Double click value number 1 and insert value data, depending which keyboard style you want to set.

In the picture I have set value 1 data to 0000040b which is Finnish.

3. Reboot your computer to apply keyboard layout.

Here are some keyboard layouts:

00000402 Bulgarian
0000041a Croatian
00000405 Czech
00000406 Danish
00000413 Dutch (Standard)
00000813 Dutch (Belgian)
00000409 English (United States)
00000809 English (United Kingdom)
00001009 English (Canadian)
00001409 English (New Zealand)
00000c09 English (Australian)
0000040b Finnish
0000040c French (Standard)
0000080c French (Belgian)
0000100c French (Swiss)
00000c0c French (Canadian)
00000407 German (Standard)
00000807 German (Swiss)
00000c07 German (Austrian)
00000408 Greek
0000040e Hungarian
0000040f Icelandic
00001809 English (Irish)
00000410 Italian (Standard)
00000810 Italian (Swiss)
00000414 Norwegian (Bokmal)
00000814 Norwegian (Nynorsk)
00000415 Polish
00000816 Portuguese (Standard)
00000416 Portuguese (Brazilian)
00000418 Romanian
00000419 Russian
0000041b Slovak
00000424 Slovenian
0000080a Spanish (Mexican)
0000040a Spanish (Traditional Sort)
00000c0a Spanish (Modern Sort)
0000041d Swedish
0000041f Turkish