Visual Effects Options

How to Change the Visual Effects Options for Appearance and Performance in Vista ​

   Information

The Visual Effects include most of the special effects in Vista. Select the settings you want to use for the appearance and performance of Vista. You can choose which visual effects to turn off, one by one, or you can let Windows choose a bunch for you. There are 20 visual effects you can control, such as the transparent glass look, the way menus open or close, and whether shadows are displayed.

   Tip

If Vista is running slowly, you can speed it up by disabling some of its visual effects. It comes down to appearance versus performance. Would you rather have Vista run faster or look prettier? If your PC is fast enough, you don’t have to make this tradeoff, but if your computer is just barely powerful enough for Windows Vista, it can be useful to scale back on the visual bells and whistles to gain some performance.

   Warning

MINIMUM SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS FOR VISTA :


Vista Home Basic

• Processor: 1GHz (32 or 64 bit)
• System Memory (RAM): 512MB
• Hard Drive: 20GB with 15GB available for Vista
• Video Card: 32MB Memory and DirectX 9 Support
• DVD-ROM Drive

Vista Home Premium, Business, or Ultimate

• Processor: 1GHz (32 or 64 bit)
• System Memory (RAM): 1GB
• Hard Drive: 40GB with 15GB available for Vista
• Video Card: 128MB Memory, DirectX 9 Support with: WDDM Driver, Pixel Shader 2.0, 32bits per pixel
• DVD-ROM Drive

Here's How:

   Warning

If you make any changes in the Ease of Access Center in the Control Panel (Classic View), then the visual effects settings will automatically be reset to the default settings. You will then need to make any changes that you have made to the visual effects settings below again.

1. Open Control Panel. (Classic View)​

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2. Click on the System icon.​

A) Go to step 5.​

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OR​

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3. Open the Start Menu.​

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4. Right click on Computer and click on Properties.​

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5. Click on the Advanced system settings link. (See screenshot below)​

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6. Click on Continue in the UAC prompt.​

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7. Under Performance, click on the Settings button. (See screenshot below)​

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8. Under Visual Effects, dot Custom: and check the ones you want, and uncheck the ones you do not want. (See screenshots below)​

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NOTE: If you dot Adjust for best perfomance, then you may have to turn ClearType font smoothing on again.

   Tip

If you want to help improve performance, then these are the most common ones to uncheck:

   Tip

• Animate windows when minimizing and maximizing
• Fade or slide menus into view
• Fade or slide tooltips into view
• Fade out menu items after clicking
• Show shadows under menus
• Slide open combo boxes
• Slide taskbar buttons
• Use a background image for each folder type

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Top and Bottom half of list:​

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9. Click on Apply and on OK to apply changes.​

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10. Click on OK to close window from below step 7.​

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11. Close window from below step 5.​

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That's it,
Shawn

Related Tutorials

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• How to Create a Visual Effects Performance Options Shortcut in Windows
• How to Open and Change Folder Options in Vista
• How to Change the Advanced Appearance Settings in Vista
• How to Open Each Folder in the Same or it's Own Separate Window in Vista
• How to Change a Default Open Window Size for a Shortcut in Vista
• How to Enable or Disable Aero Glass Transparency
• How to Change the Color Scheme in Vista
• How to Change a Computer Event Sound in Vista
• How to Change the Desktop Theme in Vista
• How to Change the ClearType Font Settings in Vista
• How to Enable or Disable the Translucent Selection Rectangle in Vista
• How to Display Small or Large Icons in the Vista Start Menu
• How to Change the Color Bit Depth Settings in Vista
• How to "Turn off all unnecessary animations" in Windows 7 and Vista

 

[ilyabyk83]

Hello Ilyabyk83,

The only one I spot that is missing is Enable transparent glass. This would be a feature of Aero. From the looks of your screenshots, I would say that you were using the Windows Basic theme instead of Windows Aero.

Double check in the yellow TIP box in the tutorial below to see if you meet the requirements to for Aero to be enabled.

http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/83824-color-scheme.html

Hope this helps,
Shawn

Hi. Thank You!!! This is fixed now

 

[Brink]

You're welcome Ilyabyk83. I'm happy to hear that you got it sorted.

 

[icynyx]

Hi,

First off, i really liked this guide and it made my laptop a little bit faster. But I have a question, after changing the visual effects, I would sometimes notice that some of the visual effects that I have turned ON will turn off by itself. A good example is the Animate windows when minimizing and maximizing option, I like seeing the windows smoothly maximize and minimize, but it gets getting turned off, is there a way for this to stop?

PS. I have noticed that the visual effects aren't the only ones that gets turned off on its own. The option in the Windows Media Player to show your current playing song in MSN also gets ticked off from time to time. And I noticed that when something resets, the backup and restore center appears in my start menu.

Thanks.

 

[Brink]

Hello Icynyx, and welcome to Vista Forums.

Have you made any changes in the Ease of Access Center, just closed a game before the visual effects settings changed on you?

 

[icynyx]

Hi Brink,

I could never tell exactly when the changes occur, I'll just notice it when I maximize or minimize the windows; although, sometimes I'd see the blue circular picture right beside my mouse telling me its processing something, and then after I maximize or minimize a window I'll know that it's been changed again. (Then I look at my start menu, and I'll see that the backup and restore center icon is there even though I have never used it...)

I'm not positive of this, but I'm pretty sure I have not made any changes in the ease of access settings; however, I'll take a look at it when I get home today.

I've tried checking if it was a virus or spyware too. I've ran my Avast Anti-virus, Windows Defender, Windows MRT and I even went to kaspersky to run their online scanner, and none of them picks up anything...

Thanks for the reply,
icynyx

 

[Brink]

Icynyx,

I must admit that I'm not sure what may be causing this for you. As a test you might create a new administrator account to see if it still does it in that account.