You can personalize your copy of Windows 7 by choosing a different color scheme, which Windows 7 applies to the window borders, taskbar, and Start menu. You can also customize the Windows 7 look by toggling the transparent glass effect on and off and by setting the color intensity.
A Windows 7 user recently wrote to me saying that he kept seeing a Do you want to change the color scheme to improve performance message on his computer and asked me why he kept seeing it, what was the reason and what could he do about it. At times, the scheme was changed automatically, and he even received a notification – The color scheme has been changed to Windows 7 Basic.
Specifically, you will see the following message:
Do you want to change the color scheme to improve performance?
Windows has detected your computer’s performance is slow. This could be because there are not enough resources to run the Windows Aero color scheme. To improve performance, try changing the color scheme to Windows 7 Basic. Any change you make will be in effect until the next time you log on to Windows
- Change the color scheme to Windows 7 Basic
- Keep the current color scheme, but ask me again if my computer continues to perform slowly
- Keep the current color scheme, and don’t show this message again.
You will typically see this message if your system is running out of resources and gaining resources, it recommends turning off the Aero theme and going to the Basic theme, which requires lesser resources.
The recommended action would be to switch to the Basic theme.
If you see Do you want to change the color scheme to improve performance message in Windows 7, and you wish to disable this message, then this post suggests some solutions you may try and see if it helps you disable the message. We will also see how to deal with The color scheme has been changed to Windows 7 Basic message.
Change the color scheme to improve Performance
1] Open Contol Panel > Action Center > Troubleshooting System Maintenance messages > Change Action Center settings > Disable Windows Troubleshooting messages.
If you do this, you will not see this message, but you will also miss out other Windows Troubleshooting messages, which your computer may want to bring to your notice.
Basic Color Scheme
2] Try this. Open Control Panel > Advanced System Settings > System Properties > Advanced tab > Performance > Settings. Select Adjust for best performance and click Apply. See if this helps you.
3] If you have system resources and video memory, but still see this message when using some applications or games in full-screen mode, then try the following. Right click the Program icon > Properties > Compatibility tab > Disable desktop composition.
You can disable Desktop Composition for every process this way, whenever you experience this problem. Doing this, will disable the Desktop Window Manager Session Manager service during the execution of this application, and will help free up system resources. Disabling the Desktop Composition globally via Control Panel > Performance Options is not recommended. See if this helps you.
Read:Does disabling Aero really improve performance in Windows 7?
4] If you wish to use the Registry Editor, do as follows, after you have opened regedit. Navigate to the following registry key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsDWM
Create a new DWORD named UseMachineCheck, and give it a value 0. If it does not exist, create it.
The color scheme has been changed to Windows 7 Basic
At times, you may directly receive a notification in the system tray that:
The color scheme has been changed to Windows 7 Basic. The current color scheme has exceeded its allowed memory, so the color scheme has been automatically changed to improve performance.
The possible reasons for this happening could be:
- Your laptop switched to Battery Power
- Your computer is low on memory
- A program you are presently running may be incompatible with Aero
- The hardware configuration or screen resolution of your computer may have changed.
In this case, you can run the built-in Aero Troubleshooter to restart the Desktop Windows Manager, or you can open an elevated command prompt window and execute the following commands:
This will restart the Desktop Window Manager Session Manager.
Make sure you have created a system restore point first, before you make any changes to your Windows system, and let us know if any of these suggestions helped you.
TIP: Download this tool to quickly find & fix Windows errors automatically
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Alongside the slew of new features and improvements included with the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update, the Windows Console (Command Prompt) is getting a color overhaul update after 20 years.
In this updated version of Command Prompt, Microsoft is changing the default color values to improve the text legibility on modern high-contrast monitors. Also, it's now possible to customize the console with an entirely new color scheme for a more modern look and feel.
The only caveat is that you'll only see the new colors if you are running a clean installation of Windows 10. If you're using an upgrade, to preserve your old settings, the legacy colors will be applied instead. However, Microsoft has released a tool to install the new color scheme along with many others to personalize your experience.
In this Windows 10 guide, we'll walk you through the steps to customize Command Prompt with a new color scheme, and we even tell you how to get more schemes from the web.
How to change the color scheme of Command Prompt
- Download the Microsoft Color Tool from GitHub (click the colortool.zip link to get the tool).
- Unzip the content of the colortool.zip compressed file. (If you need help, use this guide to extract all the files.)
- Open Start.
- Search for Command Prompt, right-click the result, and click Run as administrator.
- Type the following command to navigate to the folder that contains the Color Tool executable and press Enter:
cd c:pathtocolortool
In the above command, make sure to change c:pathtocolortool with the path to the folder where you extract the 'colortool' folder. - Type the following command to change the Command Prompt color scheme and press Enter:
colortool -b scheme-name
In the above command, make sure to change scheme-name with the name of the color scheme you want to use. You can figure out the name of the colors available in the 'schemes' folder inside the 'colortool' folder. For example, the current release, includes eight different schemes:- campbell.ini
- campbell-legacy.ini
- cmd-legacy.ini
- deuternopia.itermcolors
- OneHalfDark.itermcolors
- OneHalfLight.itermcolors
- solarized_dark.itermcolors
- solarized_light.itermcolors
The -b switch is optional, but it makes the scheme you choose the system default. Otherwise, you'll only see the new colors when opening the Windows Console using the Start menu or Run command. - Right-click Command Prompt's title bar, and click Properties.
- In the 'Properties' section, you don't need to change any settings; you simply need to click OK to apply the changes.
Once you've completed the steps, restart Command Prompt to start using the console with the new color scheme.
At any time, if you want to go back to the new default color settings, you can apply the campbell scheme, or use the cmd-campbell scheme to go back to the legacy colors.
How to get even more color schemes for Command Prompt
Although the Color Tool includes a few color schemes, it's possible to use many other colors using .itermcolors scheme files, which you can find on the internet.
The one that Microsoft recommends is the iTerm2 Color Schemes, which is an open project found in GitHub that offers more than 150 color schemes that you can use with Command Prompt.
If you want to use these schemes, do the following.
- Download iTerm2-Color-Schemes from GitHub (click the green Clone or download button and select Desktop ZIP).
- Unzip the content of the iTerm2-Color-Schemes.zip compressed file. (If you need help, use this guide to extract all the files from a zip file.)
- Open the schemes folder inside the iTerm2-Color-Schemes uncompressed folder.
- Select everything inside schemes folder (Ctrl + A) and copy the content (Ctrl + C).
- Open the schemes folder inside the colortool folder and paste the files (Ctrl + V).
After completing the steps, use the steps to use Color Tool to apply a new color scheme, including Batman, Darkside, Atom, C64, FirefoxDev, and many others.
Which color scheme did you choose for your installation? Tell us in the comments.
More Windows 10 resources
For more helpful articles, coverage, and answers to common questions about Windows 10, visit the following resources: