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How to Enable Full Visual Experience on Windows Server 2022

Fix the rectangular window drag effect on your VPS — follow this step-by-step guide to enable full visuals on Windows Server 2022.

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Written by Support
Updated this week

If mouse movement on your VPS feels smooth, but dragging windows or typing seems delayed or clunky — don’t worry, that’s normal on Windows Server editions (2019, 2022, or 2025).

When you drag a window, you’ll often only see a rectangular outline instead of the full window moving. This is a built-in optimization by Microsoft to reduce visual motion and graphical overhead in Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) sessions. It’s a standard feature in all server operating systems, which are optimized for backend performance and stability, not front-end visuals like consumer versions of Windows.

⚠️ Important:

This behavior does not affect your VPS performance or strategy execution in any way. Your trading environment continues to operate at full speed inside the datacenter — this is purely a visual effect.


✅ Optional: Enable Full Window Drag

If you prefer the visual experience of full window movement (as on a local PC), you can change this behavior — but note that enabling additional visual effects may increase bandwidth usage or reduce responsiveness over RDP.

Enable via Control Panel (GUI Method)

  1. Open System Properties:

    • Right-click the Start Menu > click System

    • Click Advanced system settings on the right

  2. Open Performance Settings:

    • Under the Advanced tab, click Settings in the Performance section

  3. Adjust Visual Effects:

    • Either:

      • Select “Adjust for best appearance”

      • Or manually check “Show window contents while dragging”

  4. Click Apply, then OK


🧑‍💻 Enable via PowerShell (Advanced Users)

If you prefer using PowerShell:

Set-ItemProperty -Path 'HKCU:\Control Panel\Desktop' -Name 'DragFullWindows' -Value '1' Stop-Process -Name explorer -Force

This will apply the setting and restart the File Explorer process.


🤝 Need Assistance?

If any part of the setup feels unclear, our team is happy to help. If you’d like us to verify your environment from our side, feel free to open a support ticket and get connected with the team: https://www.quantvps.com/

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