What is eye-candy in Win XP?

[sblake]

At the risk of appearing dumb, what is eye-candy in Windows XP and how do you turn it off? I have seen mention of this in this forum but don't know exactly what it is. I assume it is the GUI interface.

 

[Canterwood]

Eye candy is all the stuff that makes XP look prettier than its predecesors.
Its that nursery school luna theme when you first install it, the 32bit alpha blended icons, shadows underneath the icon text and all that visual stuff.
If you want to go back to the "classic " windows look, then right click the desktop - properties - themes -select windows classic.
If you want the old style start menu then right click the taskbar - properties - start menu - select classic start menu.
If you want to further tweak visual settings then right click My Computer - properties - Advanced - Performance - Settings - Visual Effects, and untick anything you might not need/want switched on.
Hope this helps.