I believe that a lot of “performance tips” are just left over lore from Win 98 days when Pentium 2’s and 1gb of ram was a beast. I get no issues from a firewall or Windows defender either. Also , there is no longer a reason not to have a daw online unless the user has an affinity to Russian porn sites. I would be interested in some genuine Win 7 info beyond the obvious turning off Aero. So far no problems for me on my new daw anyway