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Customizing Your Aero
One of the mosttalked about features in Windows Vista is the new Aero Glass interface. Aero Glass requires at least a DirectX 9 enabledvideo card with WDDM drivers and either AGP 8x or PCI-E. Now, don'tbe turned off by those big terms. All you need to do is download DirectX9.0 and you can do so for free right on this Website.
First of all,the Windows Vista Display Driver Model (WDDM) allows for the visualeffects seen on a user's
desktop to scale relative to the availablegraphics hardware. Now, not all graphics cards have the capabilityto run Aero Glass, but for those that do, the effects are fantastic.In addition to the transparent Window borders, running Aero Glassalso enables the Flip 3D function Erin talked about last week andsome very nice animation effects.
Aero Glass alsocomes with a new panel for adjusting the visual appearance. To customizeyour Aero Glass appearance, just right click on a blank area of yourdesktop and from the pop up menu, select Personalize.You may also access this by going to Start, ControlPanel, Appearance and Personalization, Personalization.
That will openthe "Personalize appearance and sound effects"panel from which you can customize many aspects of your Vista appearance.Next, click on the Visual Appearance link to openthe "Change your color scheme" panel. Fromthat panel, there are a number of predefined color schemes you canchoose from to apply. There is also a checkbox to Enable/Disable the transparent glass. Along with that, there is an option to openthe Color Mixer, which will allow you to highly customizethe displayed color of your Vista computer. With the Color Mixer,you can adjust the color, saturation and brightness of your windowborders. At the very bottom of this panel, there is also a link toopen the Classic appearance properties if you'd liketo do that.
Note: In the latest builds of Windows Vista, some users who have Aero enabledhave not been able to use the transparent glass. If that happens toyou, it is sometimes possible to get it by lowering your screen resolution.
Vista's Aero Glassushers in a new and updated look for Microsoft Windows, as well as,some very nice visual effects. It should also be noted that the AeroGlass interface may still undergo some changes in the next releasesof Vista, but either way, it's still a joy to use, so check it outtoday!
~ RamachandranKumaraswami
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