<p>Many people don't know about Microsoft's ClearType technology, which is built into Windows XP. I just did a reinstall and the settings were reset. The text was so jagged (esp. at small font sizes). So I enabled cleartype and tuned it to my monitor and now it looks great! This works on all monitors but is strongly recommended for flat panels / laptops.</p>
<p>Use Internet Explorer for this, it probably won't work in Firefox...</p>
<p>Enjoy!</p>
<p>EDIT: Oh and since I'm at the topic of optimization, may I suggest you also go to <a href="http://www.cablenut.com%5B/url%5D">www.cablenut.com</a> and download that! It improves the connection speed dramatically (it did for me).</p>
<p>There's one more cool feature of XP that I like - Hibernation. Though most computers have it enabled by default (especially laptops), yours may not. What it does is, save your computer's state to the harddrive and turn the computer off. When you turn your computer on next time, all programs etc. that were running on your computer will be restored exactly as you left it. And the best of all - it takes **a tenth* of the usual amount of time to turn you computer on!*.</p>
<p>Click Start > "Turn off computer" like you normally do. When the box pops, press the SHIFT key. You will notice "Stand By" turns into "Hibernate." Click Hibernate and the computer will save the current state and turn itself off. Next time when you start your computer, it will start up in like 10 seconds flat - exactly as you left it.</p>
<p>If the Hibernate option doesn't appear when you press the Shift key you may need to turn it on:</p>
<p>Right click on your desktop, go to Properties and then the Screen Saver tab. Click "Power". There on the Hibernate tab, check "Enable hibernation" and hit OK in all the boxes! :) Now you can Hibernate! Infact on this same Power Options Properties window, go to the Advanced tab. There you can set the computer to always hibernate when you press the power button on your computer, rather than shutting down.</p>
<p>Personally, I turned ClearType and Hibernation off. ClearType always looks too fuzzy and blurry (even when I apply the "cripest" settings) and Hibernation always seemed impractical and resource draining.</p>