The Ultimate Tweaker application is like a supercharged TweakUI, says LifeHacker. It lets you customize a number of options in categories like security settings, IE, network tweaks, user accounts, system performance and more. Plus, you can’t beat the fact that the application is a completely free download. You can grab it here for both Windows 7 (32 and 64-bit) and Vista.

With this application, you can switch off jump lists and replace them with standard menus (why? Jump lists are great!), choose to not group applications (noooo!), change what the a left click does, and more. However, the only setting that would appeal to me in this application is its ability to adjust what the middle click button does. With Taskbar Tweaker, you can change it to close a window or focus a window instead of launching a new program instance. Since I don’t typically launch more than one app (most of my apps are in the browser anyway), this one could actually be a nice tweak. A middle click is a bit easier than having to click on that tiny little red X button to close an app, which Lee Mathews also points out in his blog post.

Still, for that one setting alone, I don’t think I’ll be downloading a whole new software program just to make the switch. But that’s just me. You might find more settings you want to tweak than I do. If so, you can download the Tweaker application for yourself from here (32 and 64-bit versions are available.)

The program has three tabs at the top: an “About” tab, a “Basic” tab, and an “Advanced” tab. The Basic tab links to more commonly used apps like the Event Viewer, Disk Defragmenter, Registry Editor, and Firewall for example, while the Advanced tab links to less commonly used programs like DirectX Diagnostics, the Problem Step Recorder, and Remote Assistance.

While this software clearly isn’t designed for Windows power users who already know where to find each and every setting, it could prove useful for the novices who know the utility they need but just not where to find it.

To download the Windows Access Panel, click here (zip file/32-bit version only).

In addition to the tweaks, the software also includes other utilities like a registry cleaner and defragmenter, a disk drive clean up utility, a system performance analyzer, an automatic internet connection optimizer, and more.

The final version of Tweak 7 should become available in July 2009. You can grab the beta here.

If you register with the site, they’ll track your recently uploaded files for easy access – an especially handy feature since you have to re-create the wallpaper each month in order to update the calendar.

Of course, you could use a Vista/Windows 7 gadget to put a calendar on your desktop or – heck – just click on the date/time in your system tray, but there’s something to be said about the elegance of having the calendar appear seamlessly right within your desktop wallpaper. The Big Huge Labs utility is free to use at http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/wallpaper.php.

(via MakeUseOf)

Now there’s another application that also lets you change your background, but with a slight difference. This new Login Screen Rotator lets you pick up to 10 logon screen backgrounds which it will then display randomly each time you login. All you have to do is browse for the files you want to use then click “Enable Settings and Exit.” If you ever want to revert back to the default screen, you can use the utility called "Remove files and settings.exe" which is included with the download.

Oh, and if you’re wondering where to get some good images for your logon background, don’t forget this resource.

Other utilities that made the list are: Little Tweaker, Ultimate Windows Tweaker, XDN Tweaker, Windows 7 Manager, and TweakNow Power Pack 2009. As it turns out, some of those are actually Vista utilities that work with Windows 7. If you’re familiar with any of these tools yourself, share your experiences in the comments!

With UWT, you can configure settings for your Windows UI, your Start Menu, IE, shutdown behavior and more. The program is portable, too, and can fit on a USB flash drive.

You can get the latest version (1.1) which now features over 150 tweaks from here.

Live Search: http://search.live.com/results.aspx?q=%+

IMDB: http://search.imdb.com/find?s=all&q=%+

Dictionary Search: http://dictionary.reference.com/search?r=2&q=%+

Now what I need to know is how I can use all of them - the gpedit.msc section (see earlier instructions on this) only lets you pick one. I want them all! Any ideas?