One of the major attractions of an operating system to the general viewer is its visual style that can often be a reason to switch over from one version to the other. Most common users will be dealing with the user interface the most, not going into deep system embedded functions. For that reason, the overall graphical interface is constantly changed from time to time, providing you with a rich experience after the shift. If you are still not satisfied with the overall system design, there are lots of handy tweaks and improvements which you can make to your desktop so it stands out from the rest.

Most desktops are cluttered by icons of a variety of programs. If you are someone who prefers a more minimalist look, you can just keep the original Recycle Bin icon and replace the rest with the help of a dock. A dock is a nifty program launcher that can make the system look clutter free and still give you the same functions. You can even hide the traditional task bar and use the dock as a start menu replacement. There are multiple docks available and most of them are completely free for personal use.

Changing themes on a regular basis can keep your system looking fresh even after prolonged use. You can install various third party theme files or use software to change only certain elements like the log on screen or the boot screen. You can add your own favorite wallpapers to these screens making them look and feel beautiful with your own personal touch. For the desktop itself, you can download wallpaper packs and set it to auto rotation so that you can have changing wallpapers from time to time. Such tweaks can make any desktop look extremely appealing to others.

In case of a fast system, you should take full advantage of the visual power built inside your operating system. The Aero glass effect is switched off by default in most cases. You can easily go into the settings and enable it to get the complete transparency effect on your computer. Drop down shadows, window thumbnail previews and several other effects are also available that can completely change the look and feel of your desktop. The best part is, you do not have to be a technically sound power user to make all these changes. Most of them are available through the settings and there are plenty of programs around to help you in giving your operating system a complete visual makeover. Remember to make sure you have fixed your error 646 before you do this.

The first thing you must ensure is that your BIOS of the computer boots from the CD. When you are selecting the boot order, put CD above HDD in the BIOS, save the changes and exit. Put the CD of the operating system inside and allow it to boot. Soon you will be taken to setup options and you should confirm by pressing ENTER. The specific options might vary for each different version of the operating system so you should be prepared to follow the instructions that you see on your screen.

Do not go into the recovery console by pressing the repair through R option. Instead it is much better to continue with the normal installation of the operating system from the CD. After you come to the license agreement, you should press F8 to continue. Once you see that your current installation is selected, you can now press R to repair your operating system. You should follow the rest of the instructions to complete the repair install. Once everything has been finished, it would look and feel just like a brand new installation of the operating system.

The advantage of such a repair installation from the CD is that it fixes all the corrupt or damaged files of the operating system that were the cause of all the problems on your machine. All your settings and personal profiles are kept intact so you do not have to go through the hassles of setting them up all over again like any other recovery procedure. If you want to keep your settings intact and still repair the operating system, a repair installation from the CD is always the best option.  You do not need much technical knowledge for this procedure and the entire thing can be completed with the help of a few simple steps. Hopefully this helps you with fixing error 646.

Several older systems have limited amount of memory. When you are running a newer version of the operating system, there might be a lot of eye candy visual effects that can seem attractive at first. Soon you will notice that your system slows down considerably. This is because the visual effects take a lot of strain on the resources. If you want to conserve memory, you should turn these effects off from the system settings. After that, you are sure to notice an increase in system performance as well as lesser crashes and slowdowns in the middle of your work.

There might be lots of temporary files, internet cookies and left over registry entries cluttering up your system. The best way to solve this problem is to make sure you clean up your system every once in a while using special program. There are lots of applications available that will do a thorough system check and clean up your problems, recovering valuable disk space. The cleaning up procedure also helps you keep your system in a healthy state free from attacks as well as performance slowdowns. Most of the programs that do these cleanups are available completely free.

You can remove certain start up items that you do not need every time you boot your system. These services can take up memory resource and result in a longer boot time. Once you remove or disable the unnecessary items, you will see that your system boots up faster and runs extremely smooth during the course of your work.  You can also turn off search indexing to speed up the system and disable system restore to get extra space on your hard drive. The learning curve might sound steep at first, but once you get accustomed to the changes, you will have a system delivering top performance every single day.

If you are cluttering up your computer with lots of files and programs, the hard drive might start to cause problems. You can start deleting some of the less important files to make room for some extra space. If you cannot find anything, running a disk cleaner utility can clear temporarily files and free up valuable disk space. There are lots of internet caches, duplicate files and other unimportant items left over that can be cleared with a simple trace of privacy sweep software. The moment these junk files are cleared, you will see that your system has gained in performance.

Corrupted application registry entries are another major cause of system slowdown. If you want to make your computer run faster, use a simple registry cleaner to clean them out and improve performance. If there are too many programs at startup, disable the ones that you do not need to make sure that the computer boots up faster. Always keep a proper antivirus and antispyware program on your computer so it can detect virus threats and prevent system slowdowns after an attack. Update it regularly so you do not get affected by the latest malicious virus signatures.

Disabling excess visual elements from the settings can always help you restore some of the limited memory of the machine. If you no longer need a certain program, keep uninstalling them so that you have enough space for new entries and applications. You can even go the msconfig option and make your own changes to increase startup and shutdown times. Finally, defragging of your hard disk will keep it in a well maintained state and speed up overall file transfers within the machine. Simple applications can perform all these tasks for you so that your old computer can end up providing the same performance as a newly installed machine.