Disable shadows under desktop icons?

[Guest]

I noticed that when I switch my desktop wallpaper from a solid color to
an image, XP adds this horrible drop shadow under the icon text. Here
is what I mean: solid wallpaper on the left (good); JPEG wallpaper on
the right (bad):

http://www.grog.net/~derek/bg-solid-vs-img.jpg

Is there any way to turn off these icon text drop shadows?

Thanks.

 

[Guest]

Yep, there sure is! Go to Start...Control Panel...System...Advanced
tab...then click on the Performance Settings button. In the Window that
opens - Visual Effects - scroll down to near the bottom and the 2nd from the
bottom entry should read something like "Use drop shadows...". Uncheck this
box and then OK your way out of the dialog.

 

[Guest]

Thanks so much. I no longer have drop shadows, but there is a
background-colored box around the desktop icon text:

http://www.grog.net/~derek/bg-solid-vs-img2.jpg

Is there any way to remove this box? Of course I can choose the
background color to complement my wallpaper image, but it would be even
better if there was no solid box around the text at all.

Thanks again for your help.

 

[Malke]

Thanks so much. I no longer have drop shadows, but there is a
background-colored box around the desktop icon text:

http://www.grog.net/~derek/bg-solid-vs-img2.jpg

Is there any way to remove this box? Of course I can choose the
background color to complement my wallpaper image, but it would be
even better if there was no solid box around the text at all.

Thanks again for your help.

No. The oddly-name drop shadows effect is what gives you the
transparency with the icon name.

Malke

 

[Guest]

No. The oddly-name drop shadows effect is what gives you the

transparency with the icon name.

D'oh! After reading your post I did some searching and found a
freeware utility called Iconoid that does exactly what I want
(transparent icon text without drop shadows):

http://www.sillysot.com/

Seems to work great with XP SP2.