Remove the Special Effects

Windows XP really changed the way windows looks. Your start button is now a funky shade of green, the taskbar is a nice shaded blue, things scroll and jump around. It's all very pretty, but it's all slowing you down. If you change those items back to the boring gray colors, things will speed up!

To get started, we need to access the system properties. Click on [start] and then [control panel]. If you see an icon that says [system], click on it. If not, then you probably have an icon that says [performance and maintenance]. Click on it, and then you can click on [system] on the next page.

After you've clicked on [system], you should see a window like this:

Click on the [advanced] tab at the top of the page, which will bring up a window like this:

From there, click on the [settings] button which will bring up this window:

This is where all of the settings are for shadows and fading and sliding and all of that garbage. Your best bet is to click on "Adjust for best performance" (which unchecks everything). However, if you wish, you can pick and choose what items to keep and what items to get rid of. The more items you uncheck, the faster your system will be!

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