By Changing The Theme

The default Windows XP
theme looks very pretty, but
hogs a lot of system resources
for the eye-candy effects such
as bevelled objects and transitions.
If looks are not important
to you, switch over to the
classic Windows look. To do
this, right-click an empty area
of the desktop and click Properties.
Under the Themes tab,
set Windows Classic as the
current theme and click OK.