Web Talk

One of the most thrilling features in Windows 7 is, without any doubt, its enhanced and improved  version of Windows Aero theme which is already available in Windows Vista. This theme, also known as Aero Peek and Aero Shake, brings new life to the users’ experience by changing the way the applications are managed on the desktop. Let’s see together what I am talking about and how turn this theme on in case it is disabled by default.

Aero Peek

This theme  allows you to preview, thanks to thumbnails, those applications sitting on the Superbar. It also lets you to quickly preview the desktop by making all the open windows transparent. To achieve this result it is just sufficient to hover on the right end of Taskbar. Other features include: full screen preview of any open window and the possibility to permanently pin applications on the Taskbar.  Watch this video to understand and know more about what I am talking about.

Aero Shake

This theme allows you to instantly minimize all the non-active windows on the desktop. As a matter of fact, it is just sufficient to “shake” the window of the application you are using to make your desktop clear from the other windows. This also works if you want to visualize the minimized windows. Again, shake the window you are using to see the other ones. Watch this video to understand and know more about what I am talking about.

Now all these nice features, as you may guess, are quite resource consuming. In fact, to run them you need at least  1 GHz CPU for Windows 7 32-bit /64-bit, 1 GB of RAM and 128 MB of Video RAM with support for DirectX 9. Useless to say, if your computer doesn’t meet these requirements, you won’t have Aero theme automatically enabled. Here is a nice trick to enable it.

1. Be sure that Windows Experience Index has been properly calculated.
2. Click Start.
3. In the Search box, type: Aero and press Enter.
4. Click on Find and fix problems with transparency and other visual effects. It should be under Control Panel search result.
5. A new window named Troubleshoot Computer Problems – Aero should appear. Click Next.
6. The wizard will try to solve those issues preventing you from enabling the Aero Theme.

If this procedure doesn’t work, here is a hack to brute force Windows 7 to run the Aero theme.

1. Click Start.
2. In the Search Box, type regedit and press Enter.
3. Locate the following key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\ Microsoft\Windows\DWM
4. If you don’t have the  DWM subkey, under the folder Key, right click on the right-pane, select New – Key and create the key, naming it DWM
5. Again, in the right pane, right-click and create a new DWORD (32-bit value). Name it UseMachineCheck and give it value 0 (zero).
6. Right-click and create a new DWORD (32-bit value). Name it Blur and give it value 0 (zero).
7. Right-click and create a new DWORD (32-bit value). Name it Animations and give it value 0 (zero)
8. Now, go to Control Panel and, under Services,  restart Desktop Window Manager Session Manager.
9. Turn the computer off and back on and try to enable the Aero theme.