So, you got yourself a registry fixer and used it to clean up your registry, defrag your hard drive, tweak your start up menu and eliminate spyware and adware, and your computer is still running kind of slow.  Well, do not worry, there is one trick that is still left that might boost your speed. However, this trick will leave you without any visual bells and whistles, and could make a your computing experience a little bit drab.

Changing the visual settings

To make your PC a bit more visually stimulating, Windows has incorporated a pretty slick set of visual effects into their interactive interface. You have shadows under the pointer, icons that fade, animated windows and other cool features whose only values happen to be of an aesthetic nature and are really completely unnecessary when it comes to your PC’s overall performance. Windows does allow you the option to turn some or all of these features off you would rather have your processor’s power focused on more important things.

To change visual effects…

Go to the Start menu and click on the Control Panel. Click on the Performance and Maintenance Category then on the System Icon. The Windows System Properties menu should slide neatly into view replete with a nice outline and shadow underneath it. Now click onto the Advanced tab. Click on the Settings button underneath the Performance heading and this next window should pop neatly into view….

Now unless you were previously tinkering with your computer’s visual settings, most if not all of these options are probably checked, giving your Desktop a nice slick look. If you think such nifty visuals are pointless, then I recommend that you click on the the “adjust for best performance” option. This will pretty much turn off all the cool visual features and free up a ton of processing power for other, more important things.  If you want to keep some of these features, but not others (like who needs shadows anyways) then you should click on custom and then pick and choose which options you want to stick around and which can go away.

Kinda Dull

After trying this on my own PC, I found the result rather drab and dull. While the PC seemed to run a little bit faster, I found myself missing the bells and whistles that I once took for granted. While these visual effects are unnecessary when it comes to getting the job done, they do help make your desktop feel a bit more visually inviting and I found myself missing the look. I think that this option is for people who have a really weak processor and need to squeeze all the juice that they can get out of it and not for people with a decent power who repair their registry on a weekly basis, defrag their hard drive and keep their PC free of viruses, spyware and adware.

Tags: PC performance, registry fix, visual effects, windows