AERO GLASS by Onuora Amobi

Wikipedia defines aero this way “Windows Aero is the name for the new graphical user interface and visual style in Windows Vista. Its name is an acronym (or backronym) for Authentic, Energetic, Reflective and Open. Intended to be a cleaner, more powerful, more efficient and more aesthetically pleasing user interface, it also includes new transparencies, animations and eye candy. Since mid-2005, Microsoft has gradually added elements of Aero to released Windows Vista builds. Build 5270 (released in December 2005) contained an implementation of Aero which was virtually complete, according to sources at Microsoft; however, small changes will continue to be made until Windows Vista is released.”

Basically, Aero is a fancy (optional) graphics scheme for Windows Vista. It's optional because a lot of graphics cards don't have enough horsepower to run Aero so for those who can't (the rest of the masses), they get the base user interface.

Since I have been reviewing Windows Vista (currently Beta 5456), I naturally wanted to enable Aero and check out this new fancy interface.

You can get to this by Right-clicking on the desktop -> Personalize -> Visual Appearance. Note though that this screen is different, depending on if you have Aero working or not. If Aero Glass is working, you'll get a screen which lets you change your color scheme. Otherwise you'll get the classic appearance properties.

I got the classic properties.. hmm.. I had an NVIDIA graphics card with 128 megs of ram and this still wasn't working...

I found the NVIDIA Windows Vista drivers, installed em. Still no luck...

After cursing in 10 languages, I went to the store and got myself a Radeon card with 256 megs of ram ($90). I got back, installed the card and drivers and voila,(after 3 or 4 restarts) I was ready to try again.

I went back to Right-clicking on the desktop -> Personalize -> Visual Appearance.. Now…AERO is an option…..

In here, I changed the color scheme to Windows Vista Aero and everything finally worked!

Well kinda... my machine froze and I had to restart my PC 3 times before Aero worked..

Let me try and say this nicely…. I bought a new graphics card for this??

It’s…nice and it’s a cute party trick to flip between windows (Windows +Tab) but like so much of Vista, this is not a feature to die for and not even a must have...

Now a graphics card like the Radeon used to cost 300 or 400 dollars. It’s 90 dollars now and I am glad I bought one (for games etc) but I really have to question the overall value of this feature...

Recently Microsoft announced that they would revamp the base UI for non Aero users and make it more sexy..

*sigh* … Speechless is where I am right now...

It really is beginning to feel like Vista is one big reality show with Microsoft and the development community pissing each other off in lockstep. Ballmer says Microsoft will make dates, Gartner doesnt agree, Bill says Microsoft MIGHT make dates...

AERO is nice to have in a purely inane way. It doesn't feel like it adds really any value whatsoever and requires more graphics horsepower than is reasonable in 2006.

Regarding Aero, my overall opinion is... "whatever"...

Till next time...

Onuora
http://www.windows-vista-update.com

Onuora Amobi is the CEO of Nnigma Inc. He has about a decade of PeopleSoft/ERP experience and he writes a weekly technology column for his sites www.Windows-Vista-Update.com and www.peoplesoft-planet.com.

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