How to Turn On and Enable Aero in Windows 7 (Enable Aero Peek)
Windows Aero features in Windows 7 has been greatly enhanced and improved with new features such as Aero Peek. Without Windows Aero Glass Transparency effect, the many premium user interface (UI) goodies and extravaganza visual experience such as windows with translucent glass design and new windows colors in Windows 7 won’t be enjoyed by the system users.
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12.1.2009 Hack to Force Enable Aero in Windows 7
Windows 7 has a nice little Windows Aero troubleshooting tool to find and fix problems with transparency and other visual effects, and then enable and turn on Aero support (and also Aero Peek) in Windows 7.
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12.1.2009 Aero Glass is the final UI for Windows Vista
Back in 2001 Microsoft's early betas of Windows XP contained a user interface dubbed "Watercolor". But only months before the operating system shipped Microsoft completely replaced it with an entirely different look and feel called "Luna" which became known as "Windows XP Style".
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9.1.2006 Enable Aero Glass in Windows Virtual PC
Windows Virtual PC along with XP Mode (RC) was released yesterday for Windows 7 Ultimate, Enterprise and Professional users.
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6.8.2009 Windows Aero Is Old News – Introducing LucidTouch User Interface
If you think that Microsoft's journey into the development of natural user interfaces has stopped with the availability of Surface, then think again. The Redmond company is hard at work in a collaboration with Mitsubishi Research to produce LucidTouch.
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24.8.2007 Windows 7 Aero Snap Development Started in Early 2007
Back on February 13, 2007, just a few weeks after Windows Vista hit the shelves, Kevin Kutz, director, Windows Client, revealed that Microsoft had started working on the next iteration of the Windows client.
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18.3.2009 Life after Aero, Microsoft Cooking Improved User Interface for Windows 7
It might not sound like all that much, but it is a definite confirmation that there is life after Windows Aero. And as far as the scarce details on Windows 7 go, any palpable piece of information goes a long way.
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24.5.2008 The Secret Windows 7 Pre-Beta Build 6801 Aero Shake
Despite the fact that Windows 7 pre-beta build 6801 was showcased and subsequently released at the Professional Developers Conference at the end of the past month in Los Angeles, Microsoft still has some aces up its sleeve when it comes down to the next iteration of the Windows client.
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3.11.2008 Disable Aero Snap Auto Maximize and Arrange Window in Windows 7
Windows 7 includes a new feature called Aero Snap that intends to improve open windows management on the desktop. Aero Snap allows user to drag a window to the top of the screen to maximize the window automatically, or to the left or right side of the screen to resize the window to fill and take up half of the screen estate on the moved side automatically.
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19.5.2009 VMWare Private Beta Build 185517 Has Support for Windows Aero
For those of you running Windows Vista or 7 in a virtualization client, I’m sure you miss having the nice, satisfying Windows Aero eye candy, especially with the Aero Basic skin looking the way that it does now.
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1.9.2009 Border Skin - Enable Aero Glass Transparency Effects in Windows XP
Ever wondered how could you get the famous Aero Glass experience on your Windows XP machine? komalo of deviantArt has released a skin for Windows XP users called Border Skin which will give you Aero Glass UX from Windows 7 and Vista right on your PC running Windows XP!
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30.7.2009 Vista Aero Battery Saver
I get a bit irked when I see stuff that can be solved but people just complain about it.
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8.5.2007 No Aero Glass for Illegitimate Copies of Vista
Microsoft is pulling out a new tool from its antipiracy toolbox. Aero, the new whiz-bang UI for Vista, will only be available to registered users of Windows. That's right, no matter how fast your CPU and graphics card are, if Microsoft determines you are running a pirated version of Vista then it's the toned-down interface for you.
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16.4.2006 Nick White on Aero and battery life
Nick White, Vista's Product Manager, has responded to an article entitled “Vista, Aero, battery life . . . and Doom” by Dwight Silverman, the tech reviewer at the Houston Chronicle, regarding the impact that the Aero theme has on battery life and performance.
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15.5.2007 Enable both Aero and Glass in Vista Home Basic
I'm gonna give u some tips for people who are stuck up with Vista Home Basic
I really never wanted to have the Vista Home Basic. But when i got my Lappy i had no other option, but to stick on with this OEM version.
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28.10.2007 Microsoft Claims Vista's Aero Interface Doesn't Slow PCs
Running Windows Vista's new Aero graphical interface doesn't impact PC performance, a study sponsored by Microsoft claims.
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2.1.2007 From Windows Aero to the Windows Vista Sound Schemes
One aspect made clear by Microsoft from the get go is that, with Windows Vista, it had worked to achieve a complete user experience by bridging the graphical user interface with the sound schemes of the operating system.
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16.6.2008 Windows 7 Migration Tool to Move From Windows XP to Windows 7
In past we had covered guide on upgrading from Windows XP to Windows 7. Unfortunately there is no direct upgrade path from Windows Xp to Windows 7 and you have to use Windows Easy Transfer utility if you want to move your user and program files from XP to Windows 7.
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22.11.2009 Vista SP1, and then Windows 7, Windows 8 and Non-Windows Midori
2008 saw the release of Windows Vista Service Pack 1, Windows XP Service Pack 3 and Windows Server 2008, but Microsoft's journey on the Windows path is far from over.
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5.8.2008 Windows 7 RC Brings Windows XP Mode Beta and Windows Virtual PC Beta
The Release Candidate of Windows 7 will bring with it the first Beta development milestones for Windows XP Mode and Windows Virtual PC.
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29.4.2009 Windows Reactivator 2.0 - Backup & Restore Activation Status of Windows XP with Windows Reactivator
Every time you reinstall your windows XP you need to reactivate it online using your product key & worst if you lost your Windows XP product key.
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3.6.2009 Windows Vista SP1 vs. Windows Vista RTM vs. Windows XP SP2
Feb 26th, 2008. Principled Technologies has released two Microsoft commissioned reports on Windows Vista SP1 performance. In these tests, Principled Technologies measured responsiveness of Windows Vista SP1 vs. Windows Vista RTM vs. Windows XP SP2 when performing a set of common business and home tasks.
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28.2.2008 Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 9 – 1 Billion and Counting
Is Windows dead? Or, at least, is this the beginning of the end for Microsoft's proprietary operating system?
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15.9.2008 Week in Microsoft: Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 9
This week in Microsoft, we covered 128-bit support possibly coming to Windows 8 and Windows 9, Windows 7, Windows Mobile 6.5, Bill Gates, Office 2010 Starter, Microsoft MVP status, Windows Live Hotmail, the EU, and Microsoft Security Essentials.
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10.10.2009 Windows Vista Build 5231 and Windows Media Player 11 Leaks!
Windows Vista Build 5231 has leaked to the web. The new build is said to include Windows Media Player 11 included. View the screenshots below! This is a Main branch build that was released on September 12th, 2005 at 8:20PM.
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Windows Vista SP1 and Windows XP SP3: Official Release Dates
A French website, PC Inpact, has posted the official Microsoft product change request forms for Vista SP1 and Windows XP SP3.
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6.2.2008 Download Free Windows Vista and Windows XP SP2 Straight from Microsoft
Via the Internet Explorer Application Compatibility VPC Image. That's right! Microsoft is offering access to free downloads of Windows Vista and Windows XP SP2.
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6.3.2008 Windows Vista SP1 outperforms Windows XP SP2 in file copy
"Its interesting that people seem to think that Vista under performs in every area of the system which is quite an incorrect perception.
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27.5.2008 Windows Fiji Has RTMd as Windows Media Center TV Pack 2008
Microsoft officially confirmed that Windows Fiji has been released to manufacturing.
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18.7.2008 Windows 7 Beta Doesn't Play Nice with Windows Azure Cloud OS Tools
The promise for Windows 7 is that it will deliver an evolution when it will come down to stretching into the Cloud compared to its precursor, Windows Vista.
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16.1.2009How To: Get Windows 7 Aero in a Virtual Machine
This week, Microsoft made the XP Mode RC available to Windows 7 Professional, Enterprise and Ultimate users. Most Virtual Machine emulating software
has not offered support for Aero previously, including Microsoft's own Virtual PC 2007. Now, thanks to the powerful set of "Integration
Components" in Windows 7 Virtual PC and the enhanced, updated version of Remote Desktop in 7, we can now have the full Aero Glass experience in
Windows 7 Virtual Machines, provided the host can handle Aero, and has it enabled. Here's how to get it: This assumes you already have Windows
7 installed on your PC in Virtual PC. Step 1: Enable Aero on your host machine.
Read full story.....
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07.08.2009Shake up your Windows 7 with Aero Shake
One feature of the
Windows 7 user experience that
wasn't demoed or even talked about last week at PDC 2008 is called "Aero Shake" - the same feature that led Rafael on an epic journey to
unravel the secrets of build 6801
superbar. What Aero Shake does is allows you to shake your application windows furiously, to quickly minimize all other windows, at the same time
experiencing a seizure in your hand.
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03.11.2008Windows 7 6801 users can now get Aero Peek, too
Rafael Rivera and Chris Holmes have been really working their butts off on patching Windows 7 6801 completely, and they have now managed to not only
get every feature previously in the utility, but now Aero Peek also, while not even touching system files!
You can download the new
version of their "Blue Badge" utility (revision 03) in both x86 and x64 flavors at the source.
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10.12.2008Microsoft responds to concerns regarding Aero and battery life
Responding to a number
of recent articles claiming
that Vista's new "Aero"
user interface causes laptops
running the new operating
system to drain their battery
faster, Microsoft has
published its own results. The
company says Aero consumes
only 1% to 4% more battery
life than when the feature is
disabled:
Dwight Silverman, the
tech reviewer at the Houston
Chronicle, has written about
the impact that the Aero theme
has on battery life and
performance (under the
provocative title
"http://blogs.chron.com/techb
log/archives/2007/05/vista_aer
o_battery_life_and_doom.html>V
ista, Aero, battery life . . .
and Doom" -- he's referring
to the game Doom3, BTW).
It's a good post and I'd
like to take a minute to
expand on what Dwight has
written.
First off,
yes, as Dwight correctly
points out, the Aero theme
drives the GPU harder and
therefore uses more power.
But in the big picture, it's
really not that much more.
For example, the display on
most laptops will consume
somewhere between 15-25% of
your "power budget" when you
are running on battery. ..
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15.05.2007Windows 7: Designing Aero Snap
Steven Sinofsky: Heres a behind the scenes look at the design of the Aero Snap feature in Windows 7. We thought it would be fun to take a look at the
overall design process of the feature and the tools and techniques used. This feature poses a unique design challenge in that you just use the
feature without any user-interface specifically to invoke it. As with all features this is a collaboration across all of our engineering disciplines.
For this post, Stephan Hoefnagels, a Senior UX designer, presents the design perspective.
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17.03.2009Microsoft: Vista UI Uses Little Battery Life
Responding to a number of
recent articles claiming that
Vista's new "Aero"
user interface causes laptops
running the new operating
system to drain their battery
faster, Microsoft has
published its own results. The
company says Aero consumes
only 1% to 4% more battery
life than when the feature is
disabled...
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15.05.2007Windows 7 magnifier impractical for vision impaired people
Dan Warne has tipped us off about a "bug" in Windows 7 for vision impaired people. Dr Scott Hollier of Media Access Australia wrote to APC mag to
reveal the problem. Hollier says "The bug occurs when a user tries to use the full screen Magnifier in combination with a high contrast colour
scheme. The Magnifier appears to be largely dependent on the Aero graphics engine, meaning that it works well when Aero colour themes are used.
Read full story.....
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20.01.2009Microsoft Delivers Sophistication of Windows Aero to New Wireless Laser Desktop 7000
Microsoft Corp. brings the beauty of Windows Aero from the PC to the devices that surround it with its latest keyboard and mouse desktop set, the
Wireless Laser Desktop 7000, designed to complement the Windows Vista operating system with its striking design.
The new desktop
set includes an ultrathin Comfort Curve keyboard and rechargeable mouse, delivering ultimate performance and comfort. The keyboard features a Windows
Aero-inspired translucent design, floating Hot Keys and instant access to Windows Flip 3D,1 making this desktop a perfect companion for todays Windows
Vista-based PC.
Today Microsoft also debuts the Digital Media Keyboard 3000, an ultrathin, stylish yet affordable keyboard
designed to fit the digital lifestyle.
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11.03.2008Talking About Windows talks UX, security,and reliability
Stephen L Rose: Check out our latest addition to
TalkingAboutWindows. Ever wonder how decisions
were made about the user experience (UX) in Windows 7? Linda Averett is a key program manager on the Windows Team. From Aero Peek and Aero Snap to the
design of the new Windows Taskbar. Linda discusses the key decisions we made to make Windows 7 a great end user experience. Find out why "its all
about you, and what you do."
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18.07.2009Windows 7 Build 6936 Screenshots Emerge
WinFuture.de has posted a surprise gallery of the taskbar in Windows 7 build 6936. Several new things can be spotted in this gallery, such as:
- Updated graphics, for both the task area as well as the notification icons
- Aero Peek no longer shows the stream
- New fish
wallpaper
You can also see that the non-Aero UI has a few quirks outside of the taskbar area, but that is to be expected in a pre-beta
build.
Head over to the source to view the booty!
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15.11.2008Aero as resource hog? Not exactly¦
Ed Bott: In the midst of an
otherwise interesting account of one IT professionals experiences with Windows Vista, Andrew Garcia of eWeek lets fly with this
bit of misinformed commentary:
Aero Glass is an uninteresting resource pig, completely unworthy of all the resources it consumes.
Forty percent of my system memory is consumed out of the box right now, and Aero Glass is the largest consumer. For what exactly? A 3-D ALT-TAB screen
selection screen, translucent window edges and a handful of Sidebar widgets. This feature single-handedly hamstrings Vista installations with only 1GB
of RAM, making slower computers swap memory with just one or two applications open.
Its really hard to know where to begin pointing out
the errors in that one paragraph. But Ill try...
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14.02.2008Windows 7: RDP changes improve virtual desktop performance
The Remote Desktop Client in Windows 7 is equipped with new features and enhancements via Remote Desktop Protocol 7 (RDP). The most interesting
enhancement is the support for Desktop Composition, full Aero glass effect. Below are the features introduced in Windows 7 Remote Desktop Client
Windows 7 Aero supportDirect 2D & Direct 3D 10.1 application supportTrue multi-monitor supportRDP Core Performance ImprovementsMultimedia
enhancementsMedia Foundation supportDirectShow supportLow Latency audio playback supportBi-directional audio support I fired up the Remote Desktop
Client in the latest Windows 7 build 7057 and tested few things. Remote desktop connection experience is very much improved compared to its previous
versions and I also found the session to be incredibly responsive even while playing HD videos.
Read full story.....
neowin.net -
16.03.2009Nick White on Aero and battery life
Nick White, Vista's Product
Manager, has responded to an
article entitled "Vista,
Aero, battery life . . . and
Doom" by Dwight Silverman,
the tech reviewer at the
Houston Chronicle, regarding
the impact that the Aero theme
has on battery life and
performance. White emphasizes
that to fully maximize battery
life, window transparency is
turned off when the machine is
put into a power-saving
profile but Aero is not
because " in the end, doing
so is not going to save you
much more power ".
White agrees with
Dwight (yeah, I had to make it
rhyme) that the Aero theme
makes the GPU work harder and
therefore uses more power.
However, he states it's
" really not that much
more " noting the power
needed for a notebook's
display (15-25% of the
battery) to Aero's (1-4%). He
believes that saving the extra
power is not worth losing
" the cool features that
make Windows Vista fun to use,
such as Flip 3D, taskbar
previews, window transparency
and so on ".
White mentions that battery
life varies widely depending
on the workload the machine is
running. He also underlines
that testing the impact of
software features on battery
life is exceptionally tricky,
even by benchmarking
standards. He claims this is
because the charge a battery
requires can vary on a
multitude of factors,
including the battery
technology, how recently the
battery was power-cycled, how
old the battery is, and even
the temperature of the battery
when it was charged.
neowin.net -
15.05.2007Microsoft Claims Vista's Aero Interface Doesn't Slow PCs
Running Windows Vista's new
Aero graphical interface
doesn't impact PC
performance, a study sponsored
by Microsoft claims.
According to speed
measurements of more than 60
common business chores, which
were conducted by North
Carolina-based Principled
Technologies for Microsoft,
using the Aero interface "had
little or no negative effect
on Windows Vista's
performance."
Matt
Ayers, a program manager with
the Windows Client Performance
team, touted the results on
the group's blog. "We put
quite a bit of effort into
making sure that the new
visuals were as efficient as
possible, and it really paid
off," he wrote. "You can run
Aero without guilt!"
Principled Technologies
measured performance with Aero
on and off using a Dell XPS
M170 notebook equipped with 1
Gbyte of RAM, a 2.0-GHz Intel
Pentium M 750 single-core
processor, and a graphics card
with 256 Mbytes of memory. The
laptop's configuration met or
exceeded Microsoft's own
minimum system requirements
for what it calls a "Vista
Premium Ready PC," which is a
system with sufficient
horsepower to run Aero. Those
requirements, for example,
specify a graphics card with
at least 128 Mbytes of
memory.
Aero, which
can be disabled by the user,
is automatically ditched for a
simpler, Windows XP-style
interface, when Vista is run
on lower-powered PCs.
The Vista performance report
can be downloaded as a
PDF file
from hereneowin.net -
02.01.2007Showcase: Aero Xtreme 7 XP (Developed by InTime Applications)
jcxp.net - 05.09.2009
Windows 7 Developer Hosts Famous Chinese TV Star, Talks Shop
Song Zou, who helped develop Windows 7 features like Aero Shake and the new taskbar, hosted one of Chinas most famous TV personalities in his Redmond
home...
microsoft.com/presspass - 09.11.2009
New theme coming for Vista
Mentioned at a dinner last
night with Jim Allchin was
that a new theme is coming to
replace the Non-Aero Theme for
Vista Capable PCs (PC's that
cannot run Windows Aero).
Also mentioned were
some other great features
coming from Vista, Restart
Manager and Windows
ReadyBoost.
jcxp.net - 25.05.2006
Aero Glass is the final UI for
Vista
Back in 2001, Microsoft's
early betas of Windows XP
contained a user interface
dubbed "Watercolor". But
only months before the
operating system shipped,
Microsoft completely replaced
it with an entirely different
look and feel called "Luna"
which became known as
"Windows XP Style".
That move has created
speculation that current
Windows Vista look and feel,
called Aero glass, would be
replaced by a different look
and feel later in the beta
process.
However, this week
"PowerUser.TV" has released
a podcast which contains an
interview with Microsoft
developers who have confirmed
that there will be no major
change to the look and feel of
Windows Vista from what is
being shown in build
5270.
In other
words, Aero-Glass it is. Yes,
Disappointing news we
know.
jcxp.net - 11.01.2006
Vista Beta Sucks up Battery
Juice
Windows Vista delivers some
pretty snazzy new graphics,
but all that "wow" can be a
real drain.
With the new version of
Windows, Microsoft has created
an operating system that
offers advances in many areas,
but laptop battery life is not
one of them. Going by internal
tests at one hardware maker,
which declined to be named,
there is noticeably lower
battery life when Vista runs
in its "average power"
mode.
Microsoft
has said that the current
versions of the update deliver
less battery life than Windows
XP, but the company has also
said it hopes to close the gap
in the coming months.
One of Vista's most
visible changes is its Aero
interface, which offers
spiffier graphics when people
navigate through the operating
system. Its advanced Aero
Glass effects include
translucent windows and
animated transitions, as well
as the ability to move between
windows and documents by
selecting from miniature
versions of those items.
jcxp.net - 05.06.2006
New Windows Vista Standard
Theme
Screenshots recently released
have confirmed speculation
that the Windows Vista "Scrap
Metal" theme would not in
fact be the final visual style
that users without Aero Glass
would see. The new visual
style seems to resemble the
Aero Glass style much more
closely.
jcxp.net - 07.07.2006
