Adjust Graphics

The rich graphics in daily will slow down your computer. Here are ways to regain some of the computer's power back from the graphics.

• Right-click anywhere on the desktop
  
• Left click on Personalize
• Left click Window Color and Appearance

If your computer supports Aero and it’s turned on, you’ll see a row of boxes showing the different colors you can choose for your windows.

If your computer doesn’t support Aero or it’s not turned on, you’ll see a box labeled Appearance Settings showing some sample windows and listing color schemes. This is very much like what you would see in older versions of Microsoft Windows.

Regardless of popular belief, Aero is actually a good thing in terms of system resources. The older versions of Windows, the more graphics, the slower the computer. So you might think that Windows Classic, which has the fewest bells and whistles, will give you the fastest performance. But that’s not exactly true for Vista.

Windows Aero and Windows Vista Basic use your computer’s graphics card, and not the computer’s processor, to do most of its' work when it comes to the display. Using one of those as opposed to Standard or Classic actually lets your computer work less.

You can switch to Windows Vista Basic for most of Aero’s graphics; that also saves resources. Here’s how:

• Start at Window Color and Appearance box
• Left click on Open classic appearance properties for more color options
• Click on Windows Vista Basic

If you want to keep all of Aero’s bells and whistles, you can still get a performance boost if you’re willing to give up transparency. You can do this by;

• Right clicking on the desktop and choose Personalize
• Click Window Color and Appearance
• Uncheck Enable transparency

NOTE: If you want performance over visual affects, and you have a video card that is powerful enough, here is some rules of thumb.

• Best: Use Windows Vista Basic
• Better: Use Windows Aero with transparency turned off
• Ok: Use Windows Aero
• Worst: Use Windows Standard or Windows Classic