Display Animations and Effects

Effects

Here you can change settings that relate to the display and operation of the Windows user interface.

Under Settings, there are numerous options that you can enable or disable using the checkboxes.

To learn more about an option, simply select it with your mouse. Several lines of explanatory text open under Description.

Depending on the performance capabilities of your system, switching off unwanted effects can improve speed. Click Best appearance to select all the options that will give Windows an outstanding visual appearance. If the performance is more important to you, select Best performance. Selecting Default settings restores the Windows default settings.

Animations

Under Window and message animation, specify whether windows or tooltips should be animated.

Here you can switch on the animation when windows are minimized and maximized.

If the Use the animation with tooltips is on, you can select the effect you want from the selection list.

Under Animation of elements, you can specify for which display and control elements scrolling and opening should be animated. You can switch on the three options list & tree view, list boxes and dropdown lists.

Click Best performance to turn off all the options that only serve to provide showy effects. Selecting Default settings restores the Windows default settings.

Menu Appearance

Under Animation you specify whether menu items are to be hidden after the menu is accessed. You can also select a display effect from the list.

Under Effects, you can specify whether Windows should use flat 2D menus or whether a small 3D shadow should be displayed beneath an open window.

Font Smoothing

To improve the legibility of text on your computer, here you can select your preferred font smoothing method. The font smoothing type ClearType merits special attention: it is particularly suitable for flat-screen monitors (TFT and LCD) and makes use of their so-called subpixels to effectively smooth the edges of even small fonts. Select ClearType and click on ClearType Settings to obtain the optimum

adjustment of ClearType smoothing to your screen.

File Types

Menu Operations

Under Drives and folders, you can configure their context menus.

The Show "Open Command Prompt Here" entry opens the command prompt at the desired location.

You can execute DOS commands via the command prompt.

Under Files and folders you can specify what commands are to be shown in the context menus of files and folders. Here, the four commands Send To, Move To Folder, Copy To Folder and Encrypt/

Decrypt can be displayed. The checkbox is active for commands that are already enabled.

Selecting Default settings restores the Windows default settings.

Menu "New"

Here you can select which file types should be shown in the New submenu of the context menu for the desktop, Explorer and the "Save" dialog. Use the checkboxes to set which file types should be

displayed.

Select Remove to remove a selected entry from the list completely. Select Add... to include other file types in the list.

Under Options, you can specify whether the "New" menu should appear in the context menu of the desktop and the free area of folder windows.

Opening Files

Here you can select how Windows should proceed when opening files with unknown extensions. Under Default application, you can specify that either the "Open with" dialog is displayed or that a file is automatically accessed with a certain program (for example with Notepad). To do so, write the start name of the desired program in the field. Alternatively, select a program via Edit^.

Advanced

Windows XP:

Here you can specify whether a new shortcut should be automatically marked as such. By default the name of the shortcut is prefixed with a "Shortcut to".

In the Windows Picture and Fax Viewer section, you can decide whether double-clicking on images and fax files automatically loads them into the Windows Picture and Fax Viewer.

Windows Vista and Windows 7:

Here you can specify whether a new shortcut should be automatically marked as such. By default, the text " shortcut" is added to the end of the shortcut name.

Folder Options

View

Here you can determine how folder windows and the elements they contain are to be displayed.

Windows XP:

Under Window, you specify whether the tree view of directories in a folder window is always to be visible, whether the folder window last opened on logon is to be restored, whether compressed ZIP files are to be displayed as folders, and whether a details bar is to be displayed.

Under View settings, you can use the slide control to determine how many folder views should be stored.

Windows Vista and Windows 7:

Under Window, you specify whether the menu bar in a folder window should always be visible, whether compressed ZIP files should be displayed as folders and whether a details bar should be shown. In Windows Vista, you can also specify whether the most recently opened folder window should be restored at logon.

List

Here you adjust the display of additional information in a folder window to suit your specific requirements.

The Pop-ups with detailed information section determines whether a tooltip displaying additional information should be shown when the mouse cursor is moved over a file or folder in a folder window.

Under Icon arrangement, you specify whether the files should only be sorted alphabetically or whether they should be arranged logically according to numerical values and the alphabet.

Under Encrypted and compressed files you can specify that both file types be marked with a certain color. By default, compressed files are blue and encrypted files are green.

Windows XP and Windows Vista only:

In addition you can define the color assignment to suit your needs via the Edit button.

Thumbnails Windows XP:

Windows can show thumbnail images in a given folder as appropriate for a collection of photos. Here you determine the size and quality of these preview images. The standard size is 96 pixels. You can enter a different value if you wish. You specify the quality using the slide control.

The higher the picture quality, the more disk space the thumbnails take up. Under Cache, you specify whether these thumbnails should be temporarily saved to a file called THUMBS.DB. This file is also stored in the folder and allows the thumbnails to be loaded particularly quickly in the future.

Selection

Here you can set the color of the selection rectangle that should be used in folder windows. This

rectangle shows the progression of the clicked mouse button, if you select multiple files simultaneously.

Windows Vista and Windows 7 only:

You can also decide whether a checkbox should be displayed for selecting elements, allowing multiple files and folders to be selected with the mouse without the need to use the Ctrl or Shift keys.

Advanced

Windows XP:

Here you can set what elements are to be displayed on the Desktop and under My Computer. You can easily hide entire drives and specify how the address bar in Explorer, Internet Explorer and the Run dialog should behave.

Windows Vista and Windows 7:

Here you can set what elements are to be displayed on the Desktop and under Computer. You can easily hide entire drives and specify how the address bar in Explorer, Internet Explorer and the Run dialog should behave.

10.1.2. Usage