Start -> Settings -> Control Panel -> System -> Tab “Advanced” and then “Settings” in the “Performance” box -> Adjust for Best Performance

I dug around and discovered that those options are stored in the registry key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\ Explorer\VisualEffects\VisualFXSetting – where 0 is “let Windows choose”, “2″ is “adjust to best performance” and “3″ is “adjust to best appearance”.

I adjusted this registry key with Group Policy. The registry gets changed and the GUI recognizes that, but it doesn’t actually change the appearance!

Turns out that there’s an API call that must occur to change the visual settings, which has to be done via a program that doesn’t exist. Guess I’ve got a reason to learn C# now.