I just installed Windows 7 Professional on my desktop and Windows 7 Home Premium on my laptop.  Both computer are now running faster than they were under Vista and XP, respectively.  I don’t know exactly what Microsoft did differently this time, but they did it right.  Vista and XP didn’t run this quickly even after clean installs.

In any case, I installed Microsoft Security Essentials as antivirus software on both, partly to test it out, and I’ll move my Avast license over if I can once I’ve migrated over from Vista.  No complaints yet.

I also installed Windows Live Essentials, which is a suite of programs, including Windows Mail (formerly Outlook Express), Movie Maker, Photo Gallery, and a few others.  One of the “others” is Windows Live Messenger, which just like MSN Messenger before it in XP, starts up automatically when you boot up your computer, and it’s annoying as hell, especially considering I don’t plan on using it.  So, to disable it, follow these steps:

• In the search box at the bottom of the Start menu, type “msconfig” to bring up the System Configuration utility.
• Click the “Startup” tab.
• Find the “Windows Live Messenger” entry, and uncheck the box to disable.  I sorted the list by Startup Item to make this easy.
• Click OK, and you’re done!