It does not really make sense to keep unused network adapters enabled because of this. Most users therefor may want to consider deactivating all unused adapters in Windows to speed up the start of the operating system.

This can be done in the Windows Control Panel. Click the start button and there on Control Panel to open it. Windows Vista and Windows 7 users open Network and Internet > Network and Sharing Center > Change adapter settings for this. Windows XP users click on Network and Internet Connections > Network Connections instead.

Here you see a list of all network connections currently setup on the PC.

Please note that you not only see all network adapters listed in the menu but also network connections like virtual private network connections configured on the Windows PC.

You can disable any network adapter right here. Right-click the network adapter that you want to disable and select disable from the context menu.

You should be able to identify the adapter based on its name. If you have made an error, for instance by disabling your primary network adapter used to establish an Internet connection, you can right-click again and select enable from the options to re-enable it.

Repeat the steps for every network adapter that you are not using (regularly) on your system. It may be a good idea to restart the system afterwards to see if you notice any speed improvements during system start. You may also want to run a software to record the boot time. We have reviewed our fair share in the past, you can use programs like Boot Racer, Soluto or the Windows Event Manager.

Fast way to open the user profile directory in Windows Explorer

It takes some navigating to open the user profile folder in Windows Explorer. It is possible to speed that up in several ways. Some users like to create a folder shortcut for the user profile folder and place it on the desktop, others are adding the folder to the Windows 7 taskbar or configuring Windows Explorer to always start with their user profile folder.

A quick way to open the user profile folder is to press Windows-R, type . and hit enter. Two dots instead of one will open the general users folder instead, that is listing all user profile folders on the operating system.

Display Hardware Information

One of the fastest ways of displaying hardware information, including the Bios model and manufacturer, processor, display and others is to use Windows-R to open the run dialog, enter msinfo32 and then return on the keyboard.

Quickly open programs in the Windows 7 taskbar

Windows 7 users can pin programs to the taskbar, which works exactly like desktop shortcuts on steroids. A fast way to open the first ten programs in the taskbar is to press Windows-[1-0] to do so. Windows-1 opens the leftmost item in the taskbar. There is also an option to use only the keyboard to open any item in the taskbar. Press Windows-t to mark the first item in the taskbar. It is now possible to navigate through the taskbar with successive uses of Windows-t, or the cursor keys. Hitting enter will open or select the active item.

Copy files faster in Windows 7

Copying files in Windows can take a long time, since Windows by default uses one thread (which means one file at a time) to copy the files. The tool Robocopy that ships with the operating system (and Windows Vista, Windows XP users need to install it separately) offers to copy multiple files at once. Here is how it is done:

robocopy “sourcefolder” “destinationfolder” /MT:XX

sourcefolder is the folder of the files that need to be copied, e.g. c:\windows\
destinationfolder is the folder the files need to be copied to
MT:XX defines the number of copy threads, e.g. MT:10 for ten threads.

Manage the start menu in Windows Explorer

The start menu gets filled with software links and folders over time. If you want to remove old folders, and consolidate the start menu you may want to access it directly in Windows Explorer, instead of working with the start menu directly.
Microsoft has moved the location of the Windows start menu in Windows 7 to another location. Windows 7 users find it now located at C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs

Make sure the option to see hidden folders is activated under Tools > Folder Options > View

Got another tip that you want to share with the rest of us? Let us know in the comments.

How to end the explorer.exe process effectively

I regularly have to kill the Windows Explorer process, for instance after install a new Windows theme, or software that interacts with the default shell in the Windows operating system. The fastest option in the last years was to press CTRL-SHIFT-ESC to open the Windows Task Manager, locate the explorer.exe process in the process listing, right-click on it and select end process. Then on to File > Run in the task manager to launch the explorer process again.

kill restart explorer.exe in task manager

This takes some time and is not the best option. I have created a small batch file for killing and restarting explorer.exe with a click of the button.

killex

The batch file automatically kills the explorer.exe process in Windows, and restarts a new instance of the shell afterwards. Simply download and extract the batch file and double-click it to execute. Cautious users may want to look at the code first, which can be done by loading the batch file into a text editor. You should see the following commands:

@echo off
taskkill /f /IM explorer.exe
start "" "explorer.exe"

Line two of the batch file kills the explorer.exe process, line three will restart it. On to the second tip.

Access the properties menu of items in the Windows 7 Taskbar faster

The new Windows 7 taskbar has changed the way users interact with taskbar items. Windows 7 users who want to access an items properties, for instance to add a command line parameter to its startup, need to right-click on the item, and then again on the actual program link to open the properties menu. Two clicks with the mouse and some fiddling to hit the right entry? Not very comfortable.

The following tip only works for programs that are currently not active. This limits the use a bit. Instead of right-clicking twice and left-clicking once, users can now hold down the SHIFT key on the first right-click to open the context menu with a Properties link right away.

right click properties

Remember, just hold down the SHIFT key before right-clicking on the taskbar item in the Windows 7 operating system.

Have optimizations of your own to share? Let us know about them in the comments.

Mz Cpu Accelerator is one of those applications. No, it’s not one of those applications that try to accelerator applications by dividing them on the various cpu cores of the system. This Windows tweaking tool accelerates the active application by raising its priority.

The same functionality is available manually when opening the Windows Taskmanager. A right-click on a task provides the Priority menu where the user can set the process priority from low to realtime. The manual method has to disadvantages:

• The user has to make the changes in the task manager
• The changes are gone when the task is terminated

Advanced Shortcuts Composer was reviewed two days ago which made it possible to set the priority of a process in the shortcut which would be permanently if the application would be started using that shortcut. That however is not possible for all processes.

Back to the Cpu Accelerator. The user can select the priority of the active application between above normal, high and realtime. The main window of the tweaking tool is also providing access to various startup options and displays the currently active application. This comes in handy when testing processes and applications that have been added to the exclusion list. If a user does not want an application to be affected from the Cpu Accelerator then he could add it to the exclusion list.

Mz Cpu Accelerator comes with a cpu manager as well which can be used to assign certain cpu cores to applications. The software program can be placed in the system tray where it provides quick access to changing the priority level, managing cpu cores and disabling the software program which is also possible by using a keyboard hotkey.

The software runs fine on all Windows operating systems up to Windows Vista and requires the .net Framework 2.0 to be installed.

Boot Timer is currently only compatible to Windows NT, Windows XP and Windows XP 64-bit editions but the author promises to make it compatible to Windows Vista in future updates. To use Boot Timer simply double-click the executable and the application will automatically display a popup after the next computer restart that displays the boot time of the system.

This is a great utility for users who want to optimize their boot time.There are several possibilities to reduce the boot time of a PC. I do not want to get into all of them but here are a few tips on how to reduce the boot time:

• Remove Fonts that are not needed anymore
• Remove Startup Programs that start with Windows
• Change Bios settings
• Compress the Windows Registry

Got any more tips, let me hear them !

The same principle can be applied to Windows startups. A lot of software programs try to load during startup: Firewalls, Antivirus scanners, Office indexing and hundreds of others all load at the same time because Windows has no way of prioritizing startups.

Enter Startup Delayer. What this software does is to list all applications that are started when Windows starts. You can then delay the startup of applications that are not system critical. I would for instance instantly start my security applications but delay the start of lesser important programs such as Office, iTunes and other applications of that kind.

I try to keep my startup list as clean as possible and only load Antivir at startup which means that I do not have to use this on my desktop PC. A friend of mine however who likes Norton, Office and all those major bloated applications is using Startup Delayer successfully for some time now.

Update: A review of the latest version of Startup Delayer has been posted here on this site. Feel free to check it out for screenshots and information on what’s new and changed.