Lesson 1: Troubleshooting Performance Issues

541

Figure 11-3

The Software Explorer window

MORE INFO Managing startup programs

For more information, search for “Stop a program from running automatically when Windows

starts” in Windows Help and Support.

Adjusting Visual Effects

You can optimize performance and change how menus and windows appear by clicking

Adjust Visual Effects. This task requires elevated privileges. In the Visual Effects tab of the Per-

formance Options dialog box, you can allow Windows to choose what is best for your com-

puter (recommended), adjust for best appearance, and adjust for best performance, or you can

select Custom and configure the visual effects individually.

NOTE

The Performance Options dialog box

The Performance Options dialog box is shown in Figure 11-11 as part of this lesson’s practice ses-

sion, which is more useful than having it here. However, some explanation is required to avoid con-

fusion. Although you access the dialog box by clicking Adjust Visual Effects in Performance

Information and Tools, you use only one tab in the dialog box for this purpose. The Data Execution

Prevention tab lets you configure a security setting rather than tune performance, and the

Advanced tab lets you configure processor scheduling and virtual memory. It can be confusing

when you access these functions by clicking Adjust Visual Effects (at least it confused me).

In the Data Execution Prevention tab, you can ensure that data execution prevention (DEP) is

enabled either for essential Windows programs and services or for all programs and services