Turning Off the Logon Sound

The music that Windows 7 plays every time the logon screen displays and then
again when you log on is something that you can do without. Hearing the tunes

was really cool back when most people didn’t have sound cards in their comput-
ers. Nowadays everyone has a sound card and the cool new Windows 7 logon
sound is starting to get old. Less is more, and when your computer has to load
a 500KB media file to play, it slows things down. I recommend that you disable
the logon sound. To do so, follow these steps:
  1.  Click the Start button and then Control Panel.
  2.  Click Hardware & Sound followed by Change System Sounds listed under
Sound.
  3.  Locate the Program Events box, scroll through the list and  select  Windows
Logon. Remove the assigned sound by setting it to (None) with the Sounds
drop down list.
  4.  Below the Program Events list, remove the check next to Play Windows
Startup sound as shown in Figure 13-9.
  5.  Click OK and you are finished.
Now that was not too bad. Plus, you just shaved another second off your
loading time. If you want to save even more time in Windows, you can experi-
ment with turning off all sounds by changing the Sound Scheme on the Audio
Devices and Sound Themes screen to No Sounds from Windows Default.

Assigning Alternative IP Addresses

Over the years Microsoft has experimented by changing when the network
devices are initiated to make sure that the boot is not held up by a slow DHCP
server. Windows XP made big advances in this area and Windows 7 has an

entirely new TCP/IP stack that is optimized for performance. However, assign-
ing an alternative IP address to your network cards is something that can only
help because it saves your computer from an outgoing network request to the
DHCP server to get an IP address. No matter where Microsoft moves the net-
work initiation in the boot, it cannot eliminate the need to get an IP address

To review, every time you turn on your computer, it has to set up the IP con-
figuration for your network card. Often, this setup can result in your computer
pausing for moments during the loading process. The delay occurs because
the PC is waiting for the DHCP (dynamic host configuration protocol) server
to assign the computer an IP address and provide other network information.
On most healthy networks this is not an issue, but in some cases DHCP servers
can respond slowly causing the startup delay.
One easy solution to this problem is to assign alternative information to your
network card. This information is only temporary to allow your computer to
continue the loading process. Hopefully after you log into your computer the
slow DHCP server will have finally responded and provided the real network
information. Follow these steps to specify an alternative IP configuration for
your computer:
  1.  Click the Start button and select Computer.
  2.  When Explorer loads, type network connections in the address bar, as
shown in Figure 13-8.
Figure 13-8: Accessing network connections using any Explorer window
  3.  Now that you are in the Network Connections window, you will see a list
of network adapters on your computer. Right-click your wired network
card adapter and select Properties.
  4.  Click the Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4) to select it. Then click
the Properties button.
  5.  After the Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IP) Properties window is dis-
played, click the Alternative Configuration tab. This is where you will
enter your alternate network information.
  6.  Click the User Configured radio button to allow the text boxes to
be edited.  Chapter 13 n Making Your Computer Log On Faster   241
  7.  Type an IP address for your computer that will be used as a default in
the event that your computer cannot get a DHCP address. I recommend
using 192.168.1.X. Replace X with any unique number for each computer
between 2 and 254.
  8.  Type 255.255.255.0 as your Subnet Mask.
  9.  Your Default Gateway should be set to 192.168.1.1 because that is a valid
gateway address. As I mentioned earlier, the exact numbers do not matter.
You just want to have the computer assign some value instead of spending
time searching when it will not find a DHCP server.
  10.  Enter what your DNS servers should be. You can get this from your ISP,
but this information really isn’t that essential because this configuration
will almost never be used to connect to the Internet. It is just a default
fallback in the rare case that you are having networking trouble. Feel free
to leave these fields and the WINS fields blank.
  11.  Click OK and then click OK for the network properties screen.
Your network adapter is now optimized for the fastest possible logon time in
all scenarios.

Other Time-Saving Tips

The preceding paragraphs covered the largest contributors to a slow logon,
but there still are a few other tips that can save you additional time. These tips,
individually, do not save a lot of time, but when they are applied in combina-
tion, they can really add up. Furthermore, if you are running Windows 7 on
older hardware, these tips will help you significantly decrease your logon time
even further.

Customizing Auto-Start Programs for Other Users

Each user account on your computer can have different auto-start applications
associated with it. Certain programs may start up for one user but not for
another. All these settings are stored in the system registry. With the help of
the Registry Editor utility, you can manually change these entries.

First, I go over where Windows 7 stores the auto-start information in the registry.
Windows stores auto-start information in two places for every user. It stores which
programs will start for a specific user under the user’s registry hive/location. It
also stores a list of programs that will start automatically in the local machine hive.
Registry entries in the local machine hive will start up for all users of the computer.
Removing these entries will remove it for all users of the computer.
Now that you know the two different types of startup items, user-specific
and all user entries, you can begin hacking the registry to change the startup
programs. First, you will find out how to modify the startup programs for all
users, and then you will learn how to modify the startup programs for indi-
vidual users.
To modify the startup programs for all users, follow these steps:
  1.  If you have not already done so, start Registry Editor by clicking the Start
button, typing regedit in the Search box, and pressing Enter.
  2.  After Registry Editor has loaded, expand and navigate through HKEY_
LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run. You
will see a list of all the auto-start applications in the local machine context,
as shown in Figure 13-7.
  3.  If you want to remove a startup program, just right-click the name and
select Delete. Alternatively, if you want to add a new entry, right-click
the white space and select New and then String value. Right-click your
new entry and select Modify so that you can edit it and set the value to
the path of the executable you want to run.
That is it. You now know how to add and remove programs that will start
up for all users on the computer. The steps for modifying the startup programs
for individual users are very similar. The only difference is you have to go to a
different place in the registry.
Instead of navigating in the registry under HKEY_Local_Machine, you have
two options. You can log on to an individual’s account and then go to HKEY_
CURRENT_USER followed by the same navigation path used earlier. Alternatively,
you can go to HKEY_USERS, expand the account SID (Security Identifier) key, and
then follow the path used earlier.
tip   When navigating through HKEY_USERS it can be hard to identify what
SID belongs a specific account. I wrote a handy utility available for free at
http://Wingeek.com/Software called SID Resolver that will translate the
account SID to the actual account name

Either method will result in the same outcome. However, if you don’t have
access to a user’s account, you can still modify his or her auto-start applications
by going to HKEY_USERS.