March 20th, 2012Top StoryCustomize Your Windows Installation to Create the OS of Your DreamsBy Whitson Gordon
RT Se7en Lite (yes, the name is insane) is a configuration tool that lets you edit your Windows install disc. You can remove Windows features you don't want, add drivers you know you'll need, add or remove items from the Control Panel and right-click menu, and lots more. You can even create a disc that includes Service Pack 1 (through a process called "slipstreaming") so you don't have to sit through hours of Windows updates every time you install Windows on a new machine. The tool is remarkably easy to use, and even with heavy tweaking, it does a good job of making sure you don't remove anything that's going to screw up your system. What You'll GetThe process may seem a tad long and arduous, but the final product is well worth the work. You can use RT Se7en Lite to customize Windows 7 in a ton of ways. For example, you could:
When you're done with RT Se7en Lite, you'll have your own, custom Windows disc containing all your favorite settings, speed-boosting tweaks, and favorite apps, ready to install on any machine—essentially, you'll have the Windows you always wished you had. It's especially great if you install Windows on multiple machines, or reinstall it regularly. You only have to make these tweaks once, and they'll be added every time you do a fresh install. Here's how to use RT Se7en Lite. Step One: Fire Up RT Se7en Lite
To get started, start up RT Se7en Lite. You can go ahead and close the advertisement that pops up with the program. When the main page appears:
Step Two: Time to Tweak
Check the boxes of the sections you want to use, and then click on each one individually in the right sidebar, making whatever tweaks you want. Here's a more detailed look at what you'll find in each section. Note that when you make your tweaks, you'll need to click the Apply button on each page, which will open up the Log section and let you know which tweaks you're applying. Integration
Applications is definitely the most useful part of this section. Here, you can add installer packages for all your favorite apps (that is, the MSI or EXE files you download from their home pages), and it'll install them in one fell swoop along with Windows. It's almost like creating your own custom Ninite package, using whatever apps you want. Here, I'll usually add my essential apps, like Firefox, Pidgin, and Winamp. Note that you'll need to use the silent versions of these installers, which bypasses the installer menus. To do this, look up the silent command line switch for each program you want to install, and put it in the Silent Switch setting of RT Se7en Lite when prompted. Feature Removal
To find out what a certain Windows feature does before checking its box, just click on its name. RT Se7en Lite will provide a description of the feature or service, as well as any warnings you may want to keep in mind when removing it. Entries in red are things you don't want to remove, since Windows requires them to work properly. For a good guide on which services you can disable, check out Black Viper's Windows 7 Service Pack 1 Configurations. However, I recommend leaving the Services portion alone, since you can disable services in the Tweaks section as described below. RT Se7en Lite even has Black Viper's recommendations built-in, so you can do it with two clicks, and not worry about permanently removing services you'll want later. TweaksThe Tweaks section contains 10 different tabs, all of which contain different types of changes you can make to your system. Here's a quick rundown of what you'll find under each tab. Control Panel: Here, you can remove shortcuts from the Control Panel, as well as add a few other useful ones, like a shortcut to the Registry, Group Policy Editor, and more. Desktop: This tab tweaks specific parts of the Windows desktop and taskbar, such as changing how fast menus open and close, what the taskbar buttons look like, and what the Shut Down button does in the Start menu. Explorer: This section deals with adding and removing shortcuts to My Computer, the context menu, and tweaking Explorer's display view. There are a lot of shortcuts enabled here in the Context Menu section, so you'll want to make sure you disable the ones you don't want or you'll end up with a very long context menu, even on a clean installation of Windows!
Services: Here's where you can do a lot of bloat cutting. As described above, the best way to deal with Services is to choose a Black Viper preset from the dropdown menu under the Services window. The Default setting shows you what Windows does by default, while the Safe, Tweaked, and Barebones settings each contained different numbers of disabled services, increasing in intensity. Again, be sure to check through the list and make sure your preset of choice doesn't disable something you'll need down the line (though you can always re-enable them later on). I'd recommend Safe, as Tweaked disables some features that a lot of people use, and Barebones disables quite a few security settings. The best thing you can do is choose the Safe preset, and then go through the services on this page in detail to see if there's anything you need (or don't). Chances are, even if you use the Safe setting, there are things you'll want to re-enable (like Windows Search indexing, which is disabled under all of Black Viper's presets). Settings: These are little advanced settings that deal with things like the system prefetcher, hibernation, how many recent items to display in jump lists, and more. Visual Effects: Here, you can tweak certain effects related to Windows Aero. You can do anything from disabling transparent glass to turning off Aero Snap and Aero Shake. Internet Explorer: If you use Internet Explorer, you can edit some nice hidden settings here, like showing the full URL, turning off the search box, and more. Media Center: This lets you disable the background animation, sound effects, on screen keyboard, and more in Windows Media Center. Custom Registry: If you have any other registry tweaks you like to make to Windows (like one of these 10 beauties), you can put them into REG files and add them here. They'll be applied automatically when you install Windows. Make sure you comb every inch of these tabs. Many tweaks are applied by default, and may confuse you when you first install your new version of Windows (for example, the taskbar is set to use small icons and combine only when the taskbar is full—so it looks like the Vista taskbar). You can always change these tweaks after installing, so it's not a horrible thing if one or two slip by you—but the more you fix now, the less you'll have to fix after installing Windows. Un-Attended
Customization
Step Three: Create and Burn Your Disc ImageOnce you're done with all your tweaks, go to the Log section and click the Commit button. It'll make all your changes in the temporary folder you created on the desktop. This could take up to an hour or more, depending on how much you've tweaked. If you want to, you can also click the Export Settings button before you do so, which will save the tweaks you made in case you want to come back and edit them later.
Step Four: Install Windows and Check Over Your ChangesThe last step should be very familiar to you. Install Windows as you normally would, booting from your install disc, going through the steps, and letting your computer reboot numerous times. You may want to do this in a virtual machine first, to make sure everything works before you erase your current version of Windows. When it's done, you'll have a new, customized version of Windows at your fingertips. At this point, I'd run through and make sure all your changes were applied correctly, and see if there are any things you need to fix. Again, you can fix a lot of these things now without a problem, but if you want to remake your disc with the correct changes, you'll have to go back to RT Se7en Lite and repeat the process (this is why backing up your settings is a good idea). Got any favorite Windows tips, tweaks, or apps that you think are a must-have in an RT Se7en Lite customization session? Share them with us in the comments below. Title photo remixed from Fer Gregory (Shutterstock). |
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