[Adda]

Using Avast! or AVG antivirus, SpyBot S&D (especially the immunization feature), Ccleaner and Smart Defrag will prevent 7 from slowing down over time, all free and working on 7.
I was a bit nervous about cleaning my registry with Ccleaner since it doesn't officially support 7, but no problems so far.

 

[gkl]

Any reason you prefer a 3rd part defrag program instead of the built in?

 

[ZephyrSapphire]

Just made the switch. The most annoying bit? Downloading the upgrade files online. The downloader times out for setup1.box but that's about it. Easy installation, smooth interface. Only having 2 problems so far, WASAPI and no drivers for my Webcam & Mouse. But that's about it.

Coming from an XP user, I'm very impressed with 7.

 

[Adda]

Quote:

Originally Posted by gkl /img/forum/go_quote.gif Any reason you prefer a 3rd part defrag program instead of the built in?

The built in one is very slow and not very thorough and lacks features.

 

[Arainach]

You don't NEED to run the Built-in one (or a 3rd-party); since Vista defragging has been done automatically behind hte scenes on schedule. Also, I've never understood the point of Registry "cleaners". Everyone assumes the Registry "slows down", but I've never seen any evidence of this.

 

[Adda]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arainach /img/forum/go_quote.gif You don't NEED to run the Built-in one (or a 3rd-party); since Vista defragging has been done automatically behind hte scenes on schedule. Also, I've never understood the point of Registry "cleaners". Everyone assumes the Registry "slows down", but I've never seen any evidence of this.

When you have run a Windows installation 2+ years without reinstalling or cleaning your registry and still have it running well, you can make that claim, but I doubt you have done so.
As I said, the built in defragger is not very thorough, weather it's run manually or in the background doesn't make any difference.
Sure it does keep your files defragmented, but it doesn't compact the files at all, they remain spread out all over the disk.

Edit: Ccleaner also gets rid of temporary files, Windows often "forget" to delete a lot of these files, finding and deleting them manually is a pain, same goes for the registry.

 

[iriverdude]

OO defrag is far more power defragger. I also use cc cleaner and it's registry cleaner.

 

[xnor]

Built-in defragger is good enough and is set up to run automatically on windows 7.

 

[Arainach]

Quote:

When you have run a Windows installation 2+ years without reinstalling or cleaning your registry and still have it running well, you can make that claim, but I doubt you have done so.

I'm ran a Vista install from its launch to the release of Win7 to MSDN this August and it never slowed down. Quote:

Sure it does keep your files defragmented, but it doesn't compact the files at all, they remain spread out all over the disk.

Source? Besides, that's preferrable behavior as it helps keep quick access to important files and prevents future fragmentation.