What do Various Areo Performance Settings do?

Animate controls and elements inside windows:
Activate windows when minimizing and maximizing: Controls animation effect when min/max a window
Enable Desktop composition: Seems to only effect whether transparency is used on the desktop
Enable transparent glass: Requires desktop composition to be enabled as well, but handles transparency
Fade or slide menus into view: Menu animation effect enable/disable
Fade or slide ToolTips into view:same as above with tooltips
Fade out menu items after clicking:
Show preview and filters in folder:
Show shadows under menus:
Show shadows under mouse pointer:
Show thumbnails instead of icons:
Show translucent selection rectangle: When selecting a group of files, whether there will be a shaded box or just a plain box.
Show window contents while dragging:
Slide open combo boxes:
Slide taskbar buttons:
Smooth edges of screen fonts:
Use background image for each folder type:
Use drop shadows for icon labels on desktop:
Use visual styles on windows and buttons: Without this, you will be left with the 'classic' windows theme.. and then.. why use vista? I would say leave this alone unless you are on a very old computer or dont like the new visual styles