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Manage Icon Label Texts on Windows 7 Desktops

By Codrut Nistor

Posted in How-to, Windows-7

In legacy versions of Windows operating systems like Microsoft Windows XP the labels of the icons on desktops were not as sharp and easily viewable as they are in Windows 7. This is because Windows 7 has a new feature named Drop Shadows which makes the text of the labels easily readable because of better display. This feature can be enabled or disabled according to the wallpapers of the desktops. By default the feature is enabled and the recommendations are that it should be kept the same way to gain the optimum performance from the operating system. However if you want to disable this feature to get the legacy text format of the labels of the icons you are required to follow the steps given below:

  1. Logon to Windows 7 computer.

  2. Click on Start button and from the available menu right click on Computer.

  3. From the context menu click on Properties.

  4. On the opened window in the left pane click on Advanced system settings link.

  5. On System Properties box make sure that you are on Advanced tab and under Performance section click on Settings button.

  6. On Performance Options box scroll down to the bottom of the displayed list and uncheck Use drop shadows for icon labels on the desktopcheckbox to disable the feature.

  7. Finally click on Ok buttons on all the opened boxes in Windows to save the changes you have made.