In the process of de-shitting my Windows desktop..
Ricing Windows 7, compared to a Linux machine, is
much harder, but it has some odd charm to it, when you configure everything right, forcefully removing the bloat, and everything just falls together. The limitations you encounter at first can make it more interesting in my opinion.
Of course it seems only a very few people even know how to rice Windows, leading to monstrosities like
a lot of unnecessary screen estate wasted, taskbar being used as a substitue for start menu, and using the desktop for shortcuts and file management (why?)
What I did were some simple tweaks, without any serious modifications:
* Remove useless Windows features (games, internet explorer, search, certain services)
* Remove useless taskbar widgets, keeping only sound and connectivity
* Remove useless Start menu features, as well as all useless folders, etc.
* Moved files to home directory (not using the desktop as a pseudo home directory) and changed icons
In particular I wanted to make the start menu fulfill its original purpose, be a simple and easy to navigate menu to access, for frequently used apps and to be able to navigate the home directory directly without the use of any Explorer windows. The result is that the Start menu becomes actually usable with the keyboard, and navigation is much easier.