Tweaks for System 7.1

[68krazy]

After trying a few different versions of MacOS, I have gone back to System 7.1 on my LC550.  7.5.3 felt a little sluggish.  7.1 is very fast, but a little barren.  There is no clock on the menubar, which I really miss.  There are no desktop patterns.  It's really killing my Vintage Macintosh vibe.  I want my Mac to feel a lot more customized and capable than what the vanilla install of 7.1 provides!

I know there is a lot of love for 7.1 around here.  Can you guys share what things you like to install and tweaks you like to make to make it more like System 7.5/7.6?

 

[CC_333]

For the menubar clock: SuperClock!

For the desktop patterns: I've heard Decor is good, though the Desktop Patterns control panel might work if you take it from a System 7.5.x install (the General control panel in 7.1 also allows for rudimentary control over the desktop pattern, but 7.5's thing is more fun, as you can get fairly complex graphics and stuff).

In fact, many things from 7.5 should be compatible with 7.1 (such as WindowShade), so you can actually get 7.1 to work and look more or less the same as 7.5 (you can also run many 7.5-only applications if you copy certain extensions from 7.5), but with somewhat less bloat. Be careful though, as the slowness of 7.5 is mostly due to those addons.

Hope this helps!

c

 

[68krazy]

Mods, I just realized I should have posted this thread under Software.  Could one of you move it for me?

 

[68krazy]

Thank you CC, I'll install SuperClock and look into Decor!  That definitely helps!

Sounds like I need to be careful with what I add, otherwise I would have been better off just keeping 7.5

 

[John_A]

System 7.1P made for Performa 600, has a General controls control panel with 10-12 or so desktop patterns.

 

[bibilit]

I have used Decor for a couple of systems, and is pretty good and easy to use.

 

[olePigeon]

I have a bunch of System 7 tweaks at home, I can make a list and post them.  7.1.1 Pro is my favorite version of System 7.  Off the top of my head, I have installed:

HAM (makes the Apple menu completely customizable & scriptable.)

SuperClock

Network Time (NTP control panel that syncs your clock - requires internet access, obviously)

Pyro! (Screen saver)

Drag & Drop extension

Disk Light (adds a little flashing HDD icon in the menu bar during disk access)

Window Shade

For instant tweaks, you could install Norton Utilities and Now Utilities.  Both come with a suite of useful apps and tweaks to System 7.

 

[olePigeon]

7.1.1 Pro plus tweaks is still better than 7.5.5 in my opinion.  Besides, I like the old Welcome to Macintosh dialogue over the huge Mac OS dialogue they added in 7.5

 

[olePigeon]

Oh crap!  I forgot the #1 System 6/7 tweak every computer should have, and is on every single one of my vintage computers:

The Grouch!

I love it because it's trash!

 

[CC_333]

Actually, the "Mac OS" Dialog came about *I think* with 7.5.1 or 7.5.2, and you can revert to the old screen quite easily in 7.5.3 by going in to whichever system files contain it, and deleting the pict resources for the new screen. I can't remember if I dried it on 7.5.5.

c

 

[Paralel]

Go for 7.1.2 68k (You need to start with System 7 Pro [7.1.1] and upgrade, you can't do a direct install of 7.1.2 68k), ita ctually runs the same finder (7.1.4) as 7.5.0, so you can really run just about anything that asks for 7.5.

 

[CC_333]

And run them faster, since there's less bloat.

c