win7

Find your computer's boot time in Windows 7

Anyone who's owned a computer for an extended period of time (1+ years) can tell you that, after some amount of time, it just seems to boot up much slower than when they first got it. There are plenty of ways to help keep your computer's boot time as small as possible, but how can you find out exactly how long your system is taking to boot up? Check these steps out to find this information built right into a Windows utility.

Step 1: Open the Start menu and type Event viewer into the Search box and open … Read more

Setting volume levels for applications on Windows 7

Sometimes programs come loaded with all sorts of sound notifications and little to no way of adjusting the volumes. Even worse is when some of the sounds are, for one reason or another, ignored by the volume control the program offers. Using these simple steps you can adjust the overall volumes of certain programs without having to mess with the master volume of your system.

Step 1: Locate and right click on the volume control icon in your Windows system tray (the collection of icons to the right side of the taskbar).

Step 2: Select Open Volume Mixer from the … Read more

How to adjust Autoplay options in Windows

Autoplay can be a great tool to help your computer react to new media being inserted into a drive. It can automatically open your music player for an audio CD or a file browsing window when you plug in a USB thumbdrive. But what if, at the time, you don't want to listen to the audio CD, or browse the files on your USB drive. Follow these steps to adjust, or even disable outright, your Autoplay settings.

Step 1: Open the Control Panel from the Start menu.

Step 2: Click on the small triangle next to Control Panel in … Read more

Even ZIPpier

Most people are familiar with ZIP files, which let users compress one or more files into a smaller format that's easier to store and transport. 7z is a format similar to ZIP that uses a higher compression ratio, shrinking archives to an even smaller size. Win7z is a simple tool that lets you compress files in both the ZIP and 7z formats. It's easy to master and is a good alternative if you find that the ZIP format isn't quite meeting your needs.

The program's interface is attractive and easy to navigate, with menus and well-labeled … Read more

How to automatically defragment new disks in Windows 7

Windows 7 automatically defragments your primary hard drive in a process that runs quietly in the background. However, if you'd like to have all new drives you plug in be defragmented as well, it's going to require a little input from you.

Step 1: Open the Disk Defragmenter from the Start menu by typing "disk defrag" in the Run box (shown below). You can always navigate to the actual program from Start by selecting All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Disk Defragmenter.

Step 2: Click the "Configure Schedule" button to open up … Read more