If you've used any recent version of Windows which is running an Aero theme, you've probably noticed that it doesn't feel that responsive by default. For instance, when minimising or maximising a window, you get an animation that someone must have worked really hard on to get look nice. Unfortunately, this adds some (admittedly short) delay in responsiveness.

My preference is for a PC to feel as swift as possible to use over fancy graphical decorations. If you go to the Start Menu, right click on Computer and click Properties, you can access the "Advanced system settings" which lets you access the Aero theme settings to disable these features.

The Windows System Properties and Performance Options (visual effects) menus.

However, on changing these settings, you might find that, although they work, they don't actually stick. When you next log on, the settings have been restored to the defaults. It may be an issue with running accounts as standard users, rather than administrators.

The Windows Start Menu with SystemPropertiesPerformance typed to display the settings menu that lets users change the Aero theme settings.

To ensure the settings are kept, access this settings panel instead by typing systempropertiesperformance into the Start Menu search. The same panel appears, but the settings will actually be retained when you next log on.