Finally got around to installing Windows 7 on my main machine. As usual there are a lot of tweaks that need to be made.
The Start Menu has some nice features but I really don’t like the way the All Programs section works now. Fortunately you can bring back the old cascaded menu and keep all the good new stuff with Classic Shell.
The Game Controllers applet in the Control Panel has gone, and I had a shortcut to it on my Start Menu anyway because I use it for development. It is possible to do in 7: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/57153-game-controllers-shortcut-create.html
I use MaxTo for window positioning so I turned off Aero Snap: http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-7/disable-the-mouse-drag-window-arranging-feature-in-windows-7/
To replace notepad.exe with notepad++ copy NppLauncher over notepad.exe after taking ownership/permissions in these locations:
- c:\Windows\notepad.exe
- c:\Windows\System32\notepad.exe
- c:\Windows\SysWOW64\notepad.exe
Disable driver signing: Use DSEO to enable test mode and then sign the offending driver files. Unfortunately a security update makes it impossible to disable driver signing completely. Remove the test mode watermark with (surprise surprise) Remove Watermark.
Outstanding irritations:
- Can’t put the Recycle Bin or My Computer on the new start, but you can make shortcuts in “All Programs.”
- Clock on compact Task Bar takes up enough room for the date, even though it only shows the time. Can be “fixed” by changing the date format but the setting is system-wide.