How to disable Active Desktop in Windows XP
The desktop is an integral component of the Windows operating system and cannot be removed. However, you do have the option of disabling the
resource-hungry Active Desktop and using the classic user interface instead. The biggest advantage of doing this is that your PC will feel much snappier. Unfortunately, it is much harder to disable the Active Desktop in Windows XP than it was in previous versions of the operating system - it requires a change to the registry.
To open the registry editor, go to "Start, Run", type regedit and hit "OK". Find the entry
"HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer"
and create the DWORD values ForceActiveDesktopOn and NoActiveDesktop. To do so, right-click into the right-hand window and select "New, DWORD". Then change the binary value of the registry key called "ForceActiveDesktopOn" to 0 and that of "NoActiveDesktop" to 1.
Now quit the registry editor and restart the computer.