Windows 7

From wikinotes

Setup:

Standard Install

Wintermute:
-----------

Optional:
  Ext2FS
  MacDrive8

Drivers:
  Intel/Gigabyte Drivers
  RAT7 Drivers (w/ horizontal scrolling
  Nvidia GTX Titan Driver
  Intuos 5 Driver
  Corsair K90 (w/ maya hotkeys)

Utilities:
  iTunes (empty library)
  Chrome/Firefox
  Thunderbird
  Keepass
  KoboStore
  TightVNC (unconfigured)
  VirtualBox (really?)
  Bugn 8.3.0
  AntRenamer
  DJVviewer
  PeekThrough (translucent windows)
  MySysGit (git, bash utilities, ssh, rxvt for windows)
  ConEmu (Console Editor that rules)
  Clink (bash autocompletion in cmd)
  UnixTools
  GnuTools?
  

Games:
  Steam
  Minecraft

  Shairport 4W
  ResophNotes
  ReNamer
  Quicktime
  VLC
  7zip
  WinRar
  Daemon Tools Light
  DriverImage XML
  TeraCopy
  Trillian
  uTorrent
  autoHotkey
  btsync (artnotes)
  CPUZ, GPUZ
  Foobar 2000 (columnsUI, burninate)
  Cygwin
  Custom CMD size, solarized colours


  RainMeter
  Desktops
  Launchy
  Clover
  Desktops (Technet)

Editors:
  VIM
  Sublime Text 2
  unixTools
  git
  Microsoft Excel 2010
  Microsoft Word 2010
  DevCpp
  winMerge


Automated jobs

Windows has a built in task scheduler, but it's just not what I want. It's messy, full of windows, it isn't very portable, and it would take a long time to setup again. It is not what I want.

Performance Tweaks:

Moving Page File

  • Search for Performance in Control Panel
    • Click Performance Information and Tools
    • Click Avanced Tools in Sidebar
    • Adjust the appearance and performance in Windows
      • Advanced Tab > Change
      • Set D drive to system managed
      • click set
      • Set C Drive to No paging file
      • click set


Disable hiberfil.sys

Hiberfil.sys takes up a lot of space, more still if you have a lot of ram. If you're working off a small hard drive and you aren't interested in the hibernation feature disabling hibernation saves a LOT of space. 

## Run cmd as administrator
powercfg -h off


UTC clock

If you're dual booting windows and linux, it is in your best interest to let linux control the hardware clock. If you're booting off a liveUSB like the arch linux install media, you may find that your clock is incorrect again. It can be reset in linux by synching the hardware clock to an NTP server. 

## Automatically create registry key:
reg add "HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\TimeZoneInformation" /v RealTimeIsUniversal /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f

## Explained:
regedit
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\TimeZoneInformation
Rclick to create a new key.
New > DWORD(32bit)
RealTimeIsUniversal
Double click on it and give it a value of 1

Troubleshooting: Very occasionally this doesn't work. If the bios is set to the correct time, and Windows is still lagging 4-5 hours behind then try executing this in CMD.exe The script will say it failed, but should correct the time problem. Attempt re-synching to ntp server in linux first. 

w32tm /resync /nowait


Windows Boot Manager

It is possible to modify the windows boot menu with easy BCD, or windows tools. I don't recommend it, I much prefer using grub. It's simpler and more powerful.

  • Getting Rid of Boot Menu*
  • Go to Control Panel > System > View Advanced System Settings
  • Under Startup and Recovery options, click Settings
  • Uncheck Time to Display List of Operating Systems


Change Highlight Colour

Navigate to the following location in regedit: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Colors

I would play with the colours a bit - this isn't quite perfect. 

Highlight
239 150 34

HotTrackingColor
255 192 0



Programs:

GUI
woas
multicommander
chocolatey
autohotkey
Sublime Text 2
Terminal
conemu
irssi
nbtscan
pyradio
far manager

Games:

Widescreen Gaming

The main resources that I have found for widescreen gaming are:

  • MultiMonitorTool (cli arguments for enabling/disabling displays)
  • Flawless Widescreen (most effective tool so far)
  • Widescreen Fixer (alternative widescreen fixing hack)

The typical process for enabling mutlimonitor gaming is to

  1. Enable Nvidia surround, or ATI eyefinity
  2. Open FlawlessWidescreen (set desired settings and leave open)
  3. Run your game. Often, the resolution and POV must be adjusted in a text file

since the desired resolution will not be a standard resolution.

flawless widescreen
cursorlock


Drivers

RAT7 Mouse

  • Install both RAT7 drivers and software from the madcatz website
  • To enable horizontal scrolling, bind left and right keyboard keys to the horizontal scrollwheel.
    • Make sure that you save a profile, and activate it from the taskbar icon in order to use the hotkeys

Mouse Momentum

I found the mouse scrolling in windows to be broken with my RAT7. My scroll speed was very slow, and it felt like if I scrolled quickly the window would jitter and not move very far. Very Frustrating. This program adds mouse momentum to all programs, I found it best if I changed the mouse scroll settings from 3 lines to 4 lines.

Unfortunately, I can't seem to use mouse momentum alongside katmouse or wizmouse, and I have opted instead to have background scrolling - it's much more useful.


Background Application Scrolling

In linux you can scroll in winodws that aren't in the foreground (or in xmonad automatically steal focus). In windows there is a portable program called wizmouse that mimics this functionality.


Disable Pen Flicks

The Tablet features of windows 7 cause lag when you are using Zbrush or Photoshop, and screw up your pen sensitivity. This is how to disable the most annoying features:


Disable Pen Wave:

  1. Start > Searchbar > cmd
  2. in cmd type: gpedit
  3. Navigate to User Configuration - Administrative Templates - Windows Components - Tablet PC - Cursor.
  4. Enable the Turn off pen feedback setting.

Disable Hold Pen Bar:

  1. Control Panel > Pen and Touch > Pen Options
  2. Select "Press and Hold" and click settings
  3. Uncheck "Enable press and hold for right-clicking"

Disable Pen Flicks:

It may seem like it makes no difference, but this also contributes to a slower response time with your Tablet. Particularly noticeable whiles zooming in and out in Zbrush.

  1. Control Panel > Pen and Touch > Flicks
  2. Uncheck "Use flicks to perform common actions quickly and easily



Radeon HD 2300

This is specific to Agnes. Some laptop manufacturers force you to use their drivers instead of the Video Card Manufacturer's Drivers. This sucks, because their drivers are often out of date. In this particular case, Gateway never actually released a video driver compatible with windows 7.

The Radeon HD 2300 is no longer supported by ATI which makes it difficult to get drivers. Despite being labelled as the 2300, it is really based off the older x2100 chip architecture. It is part of ATI's R600 family.


Mobility Modder:

  • Download and install MSXML 6.0 from microsoft
  • Disable UAC
  • Download a version of the catalyst driver

_Catalyst 10.2_

  • a forum user with the gateway C-142XL only succeeded with the 10.2 legacy driver (in minecraft).
    • The driver without mobility modder shows that it installed fine, but does not actually install anything. I confirmed this by viewing the info in Device Manager. In order to properly install do the following:
  • double click on the driver, and extract the contents. Choose to uninstall driver.
  • restart your computer
  • open mobility modder, and navigate to the driver folder {{{C:/ATI/drivernameversion }}}
  • click modify
  • now navigate to the same location run the setup.exe
  • your driver should install properly. you will be able to tell it installed because your screen resolution will adjust, and in your taskbar, you will have an ATI icon.


PS3 Controller

You can use a PS3 controller in windows with the Xbox drivers. Originally, I used the motioninjoy drivers, but a tool had to be run every time you wanted to use it which was ugly, ad supported, and reportedly a trojan.

Better DS3 tool:

There are two ways you can use this driver. You can use the simple PS3 driver, or you can overwrite your Bluetooth drivers. If that is the case, simply pushing on the PS button will activate the controller. The DS3 tool uses the xbox controller driver. 

Required Programs:
SCP-DS3 Driver:  http://forums.pcsx2.net/attachment.php?aid=47324
SCP-DS3 Driver Tools:  http://forums.pcsx2.net/attachment.php?aid=47325
Xbox 360 Controller Driver: http://www.microsoft.com/hardware/en-us/d/xbox-360-controller-for-windows
Microsoft .NET 4.0
Visual C 2010 Runtime.
Latest DirectX Runtime.

1- Rclick SCP-DS3-Driver-Package, SCP-DS3-Driver-Package  > Properties > Unblock
2- Create Scarlet.Crush Productions in Program Files
	-Copy contents of SCP server/bin to it
3 - without PS3 Controller plugged in, click ScpDriver > Install
4 - Install Xbox360 controller drivers
4- Reboot


5- Start ScpServer
6- Plugin PS3 Controller. You can test it from ControlPanel/Devices and Printers/Xbox360 Controller/Game Controller Settings
7- You no longer need a wire! Hold L+R+PS button to disconnect

source: http://forums.pcsx2.net/Thread-XInput-Wrapper-for-DS3-and-Play-com-USB-Dual-DS2-Controller


Motioninjoy:

Motioninjoy is the way of doing this, it contains a trojan. Use the betterDS3tool mentioned above instead.

  • Download + install MotioninJoy's ps3 tool
  • Plug in the ps3 controller
  • open DS3 tool, and click Driver Manager
    • check both drivers, and click the button Load Drivers
  • Click Profile
    • Choose playstation 3, or Xbox 360 emulator
    • Click enable and test vibration
    • push the PS button and your controller should be enabled.


PS3 controller Non-Controller Friendly games
  • use Joy2Key to emulate keystrokes with the gamepad

Logitech F510

x360ce allows you to interpret the gamepad as an xbox360 controller. https://github.com/x360ce/x360ce


Ext3 Drivers HFS+ Journaled Drivers



Computer Specific Setup

Agnes Setup

If tablet is compatible, you can download a new Synaptics Driver for for multi-finger recognition, and then a program called 'two-finger-scroll'

Retrieved from "http://willpittman.net:8080/index.php?title=Windows_7&oldid=20994"