Turning Off Aero

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated November 2, 2015)

1

The Aero interface features in Windows 7 are nice to look at, but they can have an affect on your system performance—particularly if you are low on available memory. If you don't like the "eye candy" that Aero implements, you can turn it off if you want. Simply follow these steps:

  1. Click the Start button, right-click on Computer, then choose Properties. Windows displays the System portion of the Control Panel.
  2. At the left side of the screen, click Performance Information and Tools.
  3. Click Adjust Visual Effects. Windows displays the Visual Effects tab of the Performance Options dialog box. (See Figure 1.)
  4. Figure 1. The Visual Effects tab of the Performance Options dialog box.

Note that the dialog box includes a long list of visual effects you can turn on or off. While you can take the time to do this, if you want, the easiest way is to simply click the Adjust for Best Performance radio button at the top of the dialog box. This turns off most of the visual effects and, thereby, most of the Aero features. The result is that your system runs faster.

When you are done making adjustments, click the OK button to dismiss the dialog box. You can also close any other dialog boxes open on your system.

 This tip (12563) applies to Windows 7.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. ...

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What is 3 + 9?

2015-11-02 06:13:15

Jim Brizendine

I have a few large spread sheets with complex Macros. Can this be done from VBA? Kind of like turning off screen updating?


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