Enabling Graphics Hardware Acceleration Under Windows 2003

Aha! That's where that darn slider was hiding (Display Properties->Settings->Advanced->Troublehoot)! I must have looked for it for half an hour, and finally got help from the Windows Technical Off Topic Mailing List.

Graphics acceleration is turned almost all the way off in the Windows 2003 server products to increase the stability of the platform. Of course, since I want to be able to do DirectX work, this was not acceptable. Not to mention my screen redraws were visibly slower than what I'm used to. Cranking the slider all the way over to the right means I can play Worms Blast again.

Can't say I thought "Troubleshoot" was a terribly obvious place for it, although it makes sense in retrospect.