Windows 7 tweaking

Decluttering explorer's navigation pane:

Homegroups: link to How-to Geek
Disable homegroup services.  That's it (assuming it wasn't added at install.)

Libraries.
I liken these to having a lady's maid or valet.  You say what clothes you want, and those clothes appear as if by magic.  If you want a shirt in the middle of the night, you're stuffed - you might know you have it, but good luck with finding it.  There's also the danger that the location of some of your clothes is "in the pawn shop," which isn't immediately obvious.

Full tutorial at sevenforums
Removing requires regedit:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{031E4825-7B94-4dc3-B131-E946B44C8DD5}\ShellFolder
Change permissions on shell folder to give admins full control.
Modify attributes: b090010d removes, b080010d adds.


For Windows 7 x64, the above also needs doing at
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Classes\CLSID\{031E4825-7B94-4dc3-B131-E946B44C8DD5}\ShellFolder

Changed pinned Explorer task location (independent of libraries!):
Under properties>shortcut change %windir%\explorer.exe (libraries) to (for example)
Computer: %windir%\explorer.exe shell:MyComputerFolder
My Docs:  %windir%\explorer.exe /n,::{450D8FBA-AD25-11D0-98A8-0800361B1103}
User profile: %windir%\explorer.exe shell:Profile
C: drive:  %windir%\explorer.exe /e,c:

Change start menu start locations away from libraries: use .reg files at sevenforums as it requires changing the values of entries from one string of gibberish to another.  .reg files also provided for changing back.  Needs a reload of the hive to work!