MakeUseOf has just published yet another excellent guide, this time on the topic of keeping your Windows installation lean, mean and fighting fit. It's available as a free download (PDF), or online (Scribd).
The guide is impressively comprehensive -- it covers everything from partitioning your hard drive to installing more RAM -- but some Download Squad readers will probably find it a bit too simplistic. Having said that, it managed to teach us a couple of new things about Windows 7, so it can't be that simple.
We should also note that the guide offers a few bits of advice that we don't agree with: 20GB really isn't enough for a Windows 7 partition; something like 40GB would be more sensible -- with 1TB drives costing just a fistful of dollars, it's much better to overestimate your OS's requirements. The guide also suggests moving My Documents to a separate partition -- which is fine enough -- but it then goes on to suggest moving "all folders within your user profile" to a separate partition, which can cause issues with applying patches, service packs, and updating installed software.
In conclusion, the guide is a great resource but we're simply not sure of its target audience. It may be a bit overly-technical to send to your friends and family, and most geeks will already have their own preferred methods for keeping a Windows installation running smoothly.
Download Windows On Speed by MakeUseOf (PDF)
