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Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Open Source, Windows x64

Open source tweaking app Vista Services Optimizer adds Windows 7 love in v1.2

If you don't know the app, don't let its name fool you. Vista Services Optimizer is capable of more than just tuning your Windows services to squeeze out some extra performance.

It also allows you to create different profiles, provides a one-touch gaming mode, can take automatic service state snapshots, and offers painless recovery of Windows default settings. Version 1.2 is also Windows 7 friendly (64-bit builds included).

VSO is also a nice app for casual tweakers -- you don't have to know what each Windows service does or whether or not you can do without it. Just answer the (mostly) plain English questions VSO asks, and it takes care of making the necessary changes to your services. The built-in Rescue Center makes undoing changes totally painless.

Vista Services Optimizer is offered both with an installer and as a portable utility (host machine must have .Net 3.5 installed). Downloads from the developer's site can be a bit slow, but you can also find VSO over at Softpedia.

Filed under: OS Updates, Utilities, Features, Windows, Freeware, Lists, Windows x64

7 free Windows 7 tweaking utilities


If you're running the Windows 7 RC, chances are good that you're the kind of user that likes to monkey around with settings and tweak your OS. While you can go the DIY route and hack your registry and run your mouse ragged clicking through various control panel screens, there are a number of good, free apps available designed to simplify tweaking.

Pro tip: if you run one of these apps, use their built-in checkpoint creator before committing changes or create a system restore point yourself - just in case something goes awry.

Here are five - go ahead and add your picks in the comments if you don't see your favorite listed!

EnhanceMySe7en (pictured above) - One strike against EM7 is that you must install it. On the plus side, it's 32 and 64-bit (native). On the minus side, it uses 65Mb memory when running. On the plus side, it comes with a free frogurt!

Joking aside, EM7 is absolutely packed with options. Apart from tweaks covering every nook and cranny in Windows 7, the program also includes CCleaner-like registry and disk cleaning tools, a shortcut creator, fast access to many built-in Windows utilities, and much, much more. It's a beast.

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Filed under: OS Updates, Utilities, Windows, Freeware, Beta, Windows x64

XDN Tweaker offers simple Windows 7, Vista, XP tinkering


Like many tweaking utilities, much of what you can accomplish with XDN Tweaker is possible with a little registry hacking. If you'd rather not poke around in there, however, the free app is a fast, easy way to make a few adjustments to your system.

XDN doesn't offer as many adjustments as Ultimate Windows Tweaker, but it covers the basics. It can hide/show the right-click send to menu, add context menu options for take ownership, move to, and copy to, disable hibernation, and more. On Windows 7 systems, XDN can currently disable drag from maximize or all arrangement features and change the delay when displaying taskbar previews.

While the application itself is portable, the .Net 2.0 runtimes are required - only an issue if you're using XDN on a Windows XP system.

[via Freeware Files]

Filed under: Games, Utilities, Windows, Freeware, Windows x64

Game Booster auto-tweaks Windows for better performance


There are plenty of hardware-free solutions for squeezing a little bit more gaming performance out of your Windows system. Heck, there are even a number of tools built right in to Windows that you can use to cut down on background performance drains before you fire up your favorite game - like services.msc, for example.

Still, it's kind of pain to go in there and selectively turn off unwanted services all the time. Game Booster makes the process totally painless. It's similar to AMD's Fusion tool: when activated, Game Booster will turn off any unnecessary Windows services, do a quick RAM sweep, and offer to close any other programs that are currently running.

Game Booster is useful in non-gaming situations as well - keep it handy to quiet background process noise whenever you're firing up any processor-hungry application.

Game Booster is a free download, and it's compatible with Windows XP, Vista, and even Windows 7 - good news for those of you who are beta testing and looking for compatible tweaking apps.

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