pheester

Hi All, thought I would add my 2p to the Visual Settings nightmare. Heres what Ive found after trying various tweaks from all the posts here, using cmdlines.txt to add registry tweaks. XP by default sets option 0 (i.e. Let Windows choose whats best for my computer) to the HKLM Visual Settings hive, in my case this meant all the visual eye candy was turned ON. This means that applying the HKCU Visual Settings only does not work. All it would do would be to just tick the boxes that you had specified, the HKLM settings would still be in effect. So, to fully customize the Visual Settings the best option Ive found is to set the HKLM hive to custom with every setting turned off. You then apply the HKCU hive with custom and specify what options you want turned on (which then in turn applies to all users due to unattended). The below code shows the HKLM hive settings set to off and the HKCU settings for "Show Shadows under mouse pointer" and "Smooth edges of screen fonts" only. Hope this helps others [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\VisualEffects] "VisualFXSetting"=dword:00000003 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\VisualEffects\AnimateMinMax] "DefaultValue"=dword:00000000 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\VisualEffects\ComboBoxAnimation] "DefaultValue"=dword:00000000 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\VisualEffects\CursorShadow] "DefaultValue"=dword:00000000 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\VisualEffects\DragFullWindows] "DefaultValue"=dword:00000000 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\VisualEffects\DropShadow] "DefaultValue"=dword:00000000 "DefaultByAlphaTest"=dword:00000000 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\VisualEffects\FontSmoothing] "DefaultValue"=dword:0000000 "DefaultByFontTest"=dword:00000000 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\VisualEffects\ListBoxSmoothScrolling] "DefaultValue"=dword:00000000 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\VisualEffects\ListviewAlphaSelect] "DefaultValue"=dword:00000000 "DefaultByAlphaTest"=dword:00000000 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\VisualEffects\ListviewShadow] "DefaultValue"=dword:00000000 "DefaultByAlphaTest"=dword:00000000 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\VisualEffects\ListviewWatermark] "DefaultValue"=dword:00000000 "DefaultByAlphaTest"=dword:00000000 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\VisualEffects\MenuAnimation] "DefaultValue"=dword:00000000 "DefaultByAlphaTest"=dword:00000000 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\VisualEffects\SelectionFade] "DefaultValue"=dword:00000000 "DefaultByAlphaTest"=dword:00000000 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\VisualEffects\TaskbarAnimations] "DefaultValue"=dword:00000000 "DefaultByAlphaTest"=dword:00000000 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\VisualEffects\Themes] "DefaultValue"=dword:00000000 "NoApplyDefault"="yes" [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\VisualEffects\TooltipAnimation] "DefaultValue"=dword:00000000 "DefaultByAlphaTest"=dword:00000000 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\VisualEffects\WebView] "DefaultValue"=dword:00000000 "DefaultByAlphaTest"=dword:00000000 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\VisualEffects\AnimateMinMax] "DefaultApplied"=dword:00000000 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\VisualEffects\ComboBoxAnimation] "DefaultApplied"=dword:00000000 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\VisualEffects\CursorShadow] "DefaultApplied"=dword:00000001 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\VisualEffects\DragFullWindows] "DefaultApplied"=dword:00000000 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\VisualEffects\DropShadow] "DefaultApplied"=dword:00000000 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\VisualEffects\FontSmoothing] "DefaultApplied"=dword:00000001 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\VisualEffects\ListBoxSmoothScrolling] "DefaultApplied"=dword:00000000 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\VisualEffects\ListviewAlphaSelect] "DefaultApplied"=dword:00000000 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\VisualEffects\ListviewShadow] "DefaultApplied"=dword:00000000 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\VisualEffects\ListviewWatermark] "DefaultApplied"=dword:00000000 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\VisualEffects\MenuAnimation] "DefaultApplied"=dword:00000000 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\VisualEffects\SelectionFade] "DefaultApplied"=dword:00000000 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\VisualEffects\TaskbarAnimations] "DefaultApplied"=dword:00000000 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\VisualEffects\Themes] [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\VisualEffects\TooltipAnimation] "DefaultApplied"=dword:00000000 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\VisualEffects\WebView] "DefaultApplied"=dword:00000000