glow when you point to them, shrinking/growing animations when you close or open windows, windows that snap against the edges of your screen, and so on. All of it is neato—and all of it collectively saps your system of a little bit of memory and speed. It’s not anything most people notice on modern PCs. But if your computer is older and slower, turning off Aero might make a noticeable speed difference. Besides, some people just miss the less flashy, more utilitarian look of Windows XP. Fortunately, Microsoft rarely takes a step forward without offering a step back to those who want it. Here’s how to turn off Aero—one feature at a time.
Turning Off Only Transparent Window Edges It’s hard to think of how see-through window edges can boost your productivity. Truth is, depending on what’s showing through them, they can look a little murky and ugly. To turn them off, open the Start menu. In the Search box, start typing transparency until you see “Enable or disable transparent glass on windows.” Click it. In the resulting window, turn off “Enable transparency.” Click “Save changes.”
Turning Off Window Snapping and Shaking In Windows 7, if you drag a window close to the top edge of your screen, the window expands to fill the whole screen. If you drag it close to a side of your screen, the window expands to fill half the screen. If all this auto-snapping makes you crazy, turn it off as described on page 65.
Turning Off the Inch-Tall Taskbar The Windows 7 taskbar shows giant, inch-tall icons—with no text labels. And you no longer get one button for each open window; Windows consolidates open windows within each program to save taskbar space. You can make the taskbar look like it did in Vista or even Windows XP, if you like. Details are on page 105.
Turn Off All Those Glitzy Animations Then there are all those other things Windows does to show off: Windows seem to zoom open or closed; the Close, Minimize, and Maximize buttons glow when you point to them; menu commands and tooltips fade open and closed; and so on. It turns out that there’s a master list of these effects, filled with individual on/off switches for Win7’s various animations, pop-up previews, simulated mouse and window shadows, and so on. To see it, open the Start menu. Start typing effects until you see “Adjust the appearance and performance of windows.” Click it. Now you’re in the Performance Options dialog box (see Figure 4-1). Now, these aren’t exactly the kind of special effects they make at Industrial Light & Magic for use in Star Wars movies. In fact, they’re so subtle, they’re practically invisible. Some examples:
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windows 7: the missing manual