How do I turn on Aero in Vista?
The quick answer to this question is that you should not have to. If you are not seeing it, it is likely a limitation of your video card-or perhaps just your video card driver. Here are the details:
According to Microsoft Areo represents, "new transparent and three-dimensional visualizations require[ing] a graphics card that supports a new graphic driver model called the Windows Display Driver Model (WDDM). These effects are part of the Windows Vista Aero desktop experience and include glass effects, advanced window management features, and a more stable experience through desktop composition. This rich graphical functionality is built on the Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) graphics subsystem, formerly called Avalon."
The default Aero color scheme is clear glass. It is active by default if you have a supported video card. It allows you to see other items behind your window through a slightly blurred glass effect. You also have lots of options to tint the glass the way you like: Frost, Smoke, Seafoam, Heritage, Sky, Heart, and Candy color schemes (and you can also disable transparent glass, specify the intensity and custom-mix colors and specify color saturation if you wish).
Keeping in mind that if you have Vista Basic Aero is not an available feature, Aero availability is dependant upon the capabilities of your computer's video card.
Specifically, what you need is a DirectX 9-class graphics processing unit that supports: a WDDM Driver, Pixel Shader 2.0 in hardware, 32 bits per pixel and adequate graphics memory. What exactly is adequate graphics memory depends upon the resolution you are shooting for. The specs provide this:
Adequate graphics memory is defined as:
- 64 MB of graphics memory to support a single monitor at 1,310,720 or less
- 128 MB of graphics memory to support a single monitor at resolutions 2,304,000 pixels or less
- 256 MB of graphics memory to support a single monitor at resolutions higher than 2,304,000 pixels
- Graphics memory bandwidth, as assessed by Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor, of at least 1,600 MB per second
If your computer is not very old and it is not working for you, chances are you just need an updated driver so get the very latest driver installed. In some cases you may need to go for beta drivers when available. Here are some links to get you started…
Intel: http://www.intel.com/business/bss/products/client/vistasolutions/index.htm
ATI: http://www.ati.com/developer/windowsvista.html
NVIDIA: http://www.nvidia.com/page/technology_vista_home.html
S3: http://www.s3graphics.com/en/products/vista/index.jsp
Via: http://www.via.com.tw/en/products/vista/platform.jsp
What about VMWare? VMware emulates what's close to an S3 Trio64, and it isn't even DirectX8 compliant. Reportedly, Parallels and VMware are both working on DX and OpenGL acceleration by using your physical graphics processor instead of an emulated graphics processor.
Installation Tips
In some cases, it is best to remove a pervious version for a fresh install. Some vendors recommend disabling antivirus and DAP during installation (if present). If you download and install the latest driver and Vista still says it cannot find a compatible driver, point it to the driver manually:
1) Open device manager (the quickest way is to hit the start button, type "Device M" and hit enter-it shows up at the top of the list and like most commands, can be executed from here instead of typing the real path in the "Run" dialog.)
2) Right-click on your video card and select 'Update Driver Software…'
3) Click the "Let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer" option button
4) Click the 'Have Disk…' button
5) Click 'Browse…' and go to the location where the drivers were extracted
6) Select inf file and click "Open" and Click "OK"
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Comments
Nice site actually. Gone to my favourites. Thanks for creation.
Posted by: jack | January 8, 2007 11:30 PM
This post was a waist of my time, it didn't tell me how to turn on Aero, I mean I have the right software now how to I enable it.
Posted by: Troy | February 26, 2007 11:06 PM
Sorry to have disappointed you Troy. The extra detail was to better explain the situation, but the bottom line is: "you should not have to. If you are not seeing it, it is likely a limitation of your video card-or perhaps just your video card driver" or "if you have Vista Basic Aero is not an available feature"
Posted by: Bob | February 27, 2007 8:32 PM
I would like to second Troy's query. I have Vista Ultimate installed on a computer with a performance score of 5.2. Aero use to work on my computer but the option to use it disappeared a day ago and now I'm back to windows classic. Have no idea why it happened at all. :-(
Posted by: Patrick | July 2, 2007 9:30 AM
how do i find out what kind of video card i have?
Posted by: chris | July 8, 2007 11:01 PM
Chris,
From the control panel, click on, "System and Maintenance" and choose, "Device Manager".
Here you will see a tree of all the hardware on your system-- your video card is listed under "Display adapters".
Posted by: Bob Kelly | July 9, 2007 2:18 PM
Ya Ya!! I switched to windows basic theme to see what kinda performance increase I would get playing BF2142! Not much dif. So I tried to switch back to Aero and it does'nt even show up in any of the ways to go about it. With an eVGA 7600GS Video Card, Windows Home Premium and good enough hardware to run games online at full quality what the @Q#$% happend to Aero!
Posted by: James Smith | July 29, 2007 5:30 PM
The paper, Windows Vista Rules for Enabling Windows Aero contains "Guidelines for Troubleshooting".
On page 10 starts a guide to troubleshooting problems with Aero worth checking out.
Posted by: Bob Kelly | July 30, 2007 2:41 PM
Press F1 or Fn F1 for your help menu.
Then search "aero"
Posted by: Boris | August 26, 2007 6:17 AM
Make sure the Themes service is running in services.
Posted by: Michael Smith | September 7, 2007 7:33 AM