Enable Windows 7 Aero

Do you feel that your copy of Windows 7 is not looking as good as it should? Are you unable to enjoy transparency and Windows Flip-3D? You need to enable Windows 7 Aero!

Aero is the nice and shiny interface that Microsoft first used in Windows Vista. In Windows 7 the Aero GUI contains some new features like Aero Peek, Aero Shake, Aero Snap, and also new features for touch contained in Touch UI. Let’s take them one by one:

Aero Peek provides a preview of a window when hovering with the mouse over its taskbar icon. Aero Shake minimizes all but your current window when dragging that window forth and back very quick. Repeating the movement restores the other windows.

Aero Snap makes the windows fill that side of the screen when you drag them to the left and right side of the screen or maximize completely when you drag them to the top side of the screen.

Touch UI introduces new touch features that are meant to improve the user experience while using touch enabled devices.

Windows 7 Aero could be disabled for a variety of reasons:

1. Your graphics driver is not installed.

You can find the drivers for the 3 more important graphic card (or chips) manufacturers here:

ATI: http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/Pages/index.aspx

Intel: http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Default.aspx

Nvidia: http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us

After you download the appropriate driver you should install it by following the Next-Next-Finish method.

2. Windows did not run the Windows Experience Index assessment tool. Click here for more information.



3. It is disabled manually.

Right click on Computer and select Properties.

Click on Advanced system settings, then on the first Settings button.

Select Adjust for best appearance and hit OK.

In order to further troubleshoot the problem you can click on the Start Orb and click on Run (click here if it’s not there) and type msdt -id aerodiagnostic.

Hit Next. The tool will check for DWM (Desktop Window Manager Session Manager) service status, video memory support, color depth and others. If when the wizard finished there are things marked with red crosses you should further explore those problems.

Windows 7 Aero should now be enabled.

Tags: Aero, optimize windows 7, Windows 7, Windows 7 Aero

This entry was posted on Friday, October 30th, 2009 at 2:59 am and is filed under Windows 7. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.