When you install Windows, it usually starts in a screen resolution of 640 X 480 pixels, 16 colors, and 60 Hz refresh rate. Change that immediately - one of your first duties after installing Windows. It costs you less than five minutes time, but will make your whole system far more "ergonomic", and maybe even faster.
Check what resolutions and refresh rates your monitor will tolerate. This is important, as chossing the wrong settings later on is one of the very few instances where you actually can damage your hardware just by changing a software setting.
Check what resolutions and refresh rates your graphics adapter supports - usually far more than your monitor will cope with
Chose a sensible screen area (rule of thumb: 15" monitor 800 * 600, 17" monitor 1024 * 768) and check weather both graphics card and monitor support that at a refresh rate of at least 72 Hz (and 16 bit colors). Larger screen areas become more readable if you chose "Large fonts".
| Right click your Windows desktop and choose "properties" from the menu: |  |
| then chose the "settings" tab on the top of the
"Display Properties" .
Adjust your color depth and screen area, then click on the "Advanced button". |
 |
| select the "Adapter" tab and select a refresh rate as
high as possible - provided that your monitor supports it. By all
means the refresh rate should be more or equal than 72 Hz.
Everything below 72 Hz is not only more likely to be experienced as "flickering", but it would be a health hazard as well. It causes "computer strain" and it can impair your color vision. In Scandinavian countries, where safety at the workplace always mattered, "flicker free screens" are compulsory by law. |
 |
When you have adjusted your refresh rate and screen area, you should have a look at the other tabs in the settings box:
 |
chose a uniform color as background ("Pattern" none, "Wallpaper" none). Background images may be nice, but they consume a huge amount of precious RAM and slow your system down thereby. Apart from that, they distract.
| get rid of any "screen savers". They consume RAM and processor time and are completely useless if you have a modern "Energy Star" or DPMS compliant monitor with own power management. If your monitor does not support power management, then chose the "blank screen" screen saver.
| In the effects tab get rid of all ticks - useless stuff that costs resources and slows your system down. On some (very fast) systems though it can be nice to "smooth edges of screen fonts" and "show icons in all possible colors". |