Adjust Visual Effects for Increased Performance

Windows XP ships with a number of visual effects that combine to give the Operating System its aesthetically pleasing appearance. These include such effects as fading or sliding menus, drop shadows for desktop icons, XP style title bars and buttons and a host of others.

While these effects certainly increase the visual appeal of Windows XP, they also consume system resources and can decrease the overall performance of the computer. However, you can easily adjust the visual effects to minimize this performance deficit.

If you have a computer with a fast processor and plenty of RAM, the performance gain achieved by disabling visual effects might well be negligible and you may not notice any difference. However, if you are running XP on a computer that is a little underpowered, adjusting the visual effects may give your system a small but welcome performance boost.

Of course, any gain in system performance is offset by the loss in aesthetic appeal. Nevertheless, you might be quite happy to lose the Windows XP eye-candy in exchange for a more responsive system.

Here's how to adjust your visual effects for the best performance:

Right-click the "My Computer" icon (on the desktop or in the Start Menu) and select "Properties" to open the "System Properties" window.
Click the "Advanced" tab.
In the section labelled "Performance", click the "Settings" button to open the "Performance Options" window.
In the "Visual Effects" tab, click "Adjust for best performance".
Click "OK". The system could take a minute or so to make the adjustment and the screen may briefly go black and white during the process. After the process is complete, the "Performance Options" window will close.
In the "System Properties" window, click the "OK" button to exit.

Your system will now look like earlier Windows operating systems such as Windows 2000 but may perform a little better.

To go back to the default Windows XP appearance:

Right-click the "My Computer" icon (on the desktop or in the Start Menu) and select "Properties" to open the "System Properties" window.
Click the "Advanced" tab.
In the section labelled "Performance", click the "Settings" button to open the "Performance Options" window.
In the "Visual Effects" tab, click "Adjust for best appearance" or "Let Windows choose what's best for my computer".
Click "OK". The system could take a minute or so to make the adjustment and the screen may briefly go black and white during the process. After the process is complete, the "Performance Options" window will close.
In the "System Properties" window, click the "OK" button to exit.

Your system should now have reverted to the familiar XP visual effects configuration.

XP Tips - Computer Tips for Windows XP