Tweak Windows Media Player and Windows Live Messenger to Speed Up Windows 7

Are you satisfied with Windows 7 out of the box? Chances are that you would still like it to run faster. We’ve already written an article describing how to speed up Windows 7 and covered the essential optimization techniques. But it’s possible to make Windows 7 even faster. Here is how tweaking Windows Media Player and Windows Live Messenger can help you speed up your PC.

Speed Up Windows Media Player

There are plenty of great freeware Windows Media Player alternatives. But it’s still the media player of choice for thousands of people. Perhaps that’s because Windows Media Player comes preinstalled on all Windows computers. The problem is that Windows Media Player is slow and heavy on system resources. Fortunately, there are some tweaks you can apply to speed it up.

One of the problems with Windows Media Player is that it’s slow when you try to change songs. This (and other speed problems) can be fixed by disabling enhancements:

1. Click on Start and go to the Control Panel
2. Open Sound and navigate to the Playback tab
3. Double-click on Speakers/Headphones and go to the Enhancements tab
4. Check the Disable all enhancements checkbox
5. Save your changes and exit

Another way to speed up Windows Media Player is to turn off visualizations:

1. Open Windows Media Player. If a song is playing, switch to the Now Playing button in the lower-right corner
2. Right-click on an empty space in the player window, go to Visualizations and select No Visualization

Disable Windows Live Messenger in Hotmail

Another way to increase your productivity and speed things up when using Windows 7 is to prevent Windows Live Messenger from loading automatically every time you open Hotmail. By default, the messenger is configured to run automatically every time you open a Hotmail page. This can significantly slow down Hotmail startup and even cause Hotmail to stop working correctly.

Disabling Windows Live Messenger in Hotmail is pretty easy:

1. Open Internet Explorer, go to Tools and click on Manage Add-ons
2. A new window will open
3. Locate the Windows Live and Windows Live Sign-In Helper add-ons
4. Select both add-ons, right-click on them and select Disable
5. Check their status and make sure it says Disabled

Now Windows Live Messenger won’t load when you open Hotmail.

These simple tweaks will help you speed up Windows 7, make it easier to use, and increase your productivity.