Windows 7 is unusual as a Windows version as, out of the box, it needs less tweaking than any previous version.  However there’s still an awful lot you can tweak and finding the right place to do it can be annoying because the settings panels for the OS are scattered all over the place.

Enter Windows 7 in a Box, a small utility that doesn’t even need to be installed.  Just run it and it does only one job.  It aggregates all the different configuration options into one place with handy menus and shortcuts for them.

As a tool this is one of the best I’ve seen, especially for novice users or people who might be wary of installing third party software on their PC.  There’s no installer as I said, but also no UAC box to check through.

The menus themselves are simply and logically laid out and make it simple to find whatever you need so you can change settings, modify options or even change a password or hibernate your machine.

One of the biggest advantages of this software is that because it doesn’t need to be installed, there’s no additional start-up entry, no more bloat in your registry and no more pointless files scattered across your hard drive.  All these things can slow down your PC, especially if you have a few of these utilities installed along-side your regular software.

For me Windows 7 in a Box is a winner, and I’d suggest you try it out.  You can download it here.