Removing Gizmos from Your Systems (2)
The Desktop tab offers a few places for optimization. You can do things like rely on a plain background or one with patterns, rather than a picture, to save memory. This option doesn’t save it a lot, but it does save some and admittedly, most people don’t see the background on their monitor anyway. Click Customize Desktop and you’ll see the Desktop Items dialog box. Removing all of the checks next to items on the Web tab can save considerable memory, hard drive space, and network bandwidth. Make sure you delete any items you won’t use.
One of the best places to save system resources is on the Appearance tab. One simple change from Windows XP Style to Windows Classic Style in the Windows and Buttons field can make a big difference in system performance. Click Effects and you’ll see the Effects dialog box. Clearing all of the options except font smoothing will net another big performance boost.
The second place to look for themes settings to optimize is in the System Properties dialog box that you access by right-clicking My Computer and choosing Properties. Select the Advanced tab and click Settings in the Performance section of the dialog box. You’ll see the Performance Options dialog box. The Visual Effects tab contains a number of special effects that you can remove to improve system performance. Again, make sure you keep font smoothing to help the user see well.
Taken From : Microsoft Windows XP Power Optimization