Is having a wallpaper, desktop icons and auto-hide taskbar a waste of cpu resources?

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Possible Duplicate:
if we do not use any wallpaper on desktop will it increase performance of windows?

There was a time when PC magazines used to advise not having a wallpaper because it consumed precious memory and CPU cycles.

I have a Core2Duo processor, 1GB ram, 80GB HDD and a display of 1440x900 resolution. My tech-lead told me today, to remove my wallpaper and stop the auto-hiding of the taskbar because "it wastes a lot of CPU cycles".

Is this still true or is it an old philosophy that can be discarded?

Nav

Posted 2011-10-24T13:05:38.933

Reputation: 913

Question was closed 2011-11-22T21:15:56.173

Thanks for that link. It's not an exact duplicate though, coz I'm also asking about the auto-hide option and the fact that some people say that having a lot of desktop icons slows performance as all of them have to be re-displayed everytime you do a show-desktop etc. – Nav – 2011-10-24T14:11:22.410

1It was never true, even back in the day. If your machine is THIS slow you have bigger problems! – Shinrai – 2011-10-24T14:16:56.827

1Actually the icons may be relevant. I have a 1920x1200 screen completely filled with icons. After I moved around 50% of them to a directory on the desktop, in some situations systems became more responsive, like just after reboot or when closing a video game. – AndrejaKo – 2011-10-24T18:15:42.803

Answers

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No, it will not "waste a lot of CPU cycles". Displaying your wallpaper is primarily the video card's job, not the CPUs. Auto-hiding the taskbar does use CPU, but it's only a "waste" if your computer slows down to a crawl while the bar is hiding or revealing.

If you're experiencing slowness, you have plenty other things to try that are much more likely to provide much greater performance benefits than using a blank desktop background and disabling auto-hide of your taskbar.

music2myear

Posted 2011-10-24T13:05:38.933

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Asked: 2011-10-24T13:05:38.933

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