Vista Aero GUI on Vista Home Basic---Tutorial

[Abhishek Dwivedi]

Vista Aero GUI on Vista Home Basic


Windows Vista is one of the most powerful operating system available in the today’s software market but many people know and love Vista only because of the awesome GUI (Graphical User Interface).
Microsoft Launched mainly 4 version’s of Windows Vista namely:
· Windows Vista Home Basic
· Windows Vista Home Premium
· Windows Vista Business
· Windows Vista Ultimate

The basic difference in their GUI is given as follows:

• Windows Vista Home Basic: This is the most basic version of Vista available in market. Its GUI is as follows:

a) Vista Basic Look (non aero)
b) No Vista Flip 3D
c) No Vista Glass
d) No Vista Live Taskbar

• Windows Vista Home Premium\Business\Ultimate: They all nearly have the same GUI interface as follow:

a) Vista Aero Look
b) Vista Flip 3D
c) Vista Glass
d) Vista Live Taskbar

If you wish to have a look at the other features of Windows Vista, CLICK HERE.

Now coming to the main topic,
HOW TO BRING THESE COOL FEATURE KNOWN AS VISTA AERO TO WINDOWS VISTA HOME BASIC?

WARNING: The below mentioned tweaks and\orSoftware might effect your system performance negatively and\or crash your system completely. Create a back of your file before altering them. I will not be responsible for any kind of loss of data or anything after using this tutorial.

Vista Standard look: Vista Basic comes with Vista Basic look, which look like this:




This the is Vista Basic look without any glow effect on any button. If you wish to activate the Vista Standard Look on your Home Basic Machine, follow the instructions:

NOTE: The Vista Standard look is much different from the Vista Aero look as no glass effect and flip3D is provided with it.

REQUIREMENTS: The Hardware requirements for Vista Standrad look are:
l Your Graphics Card must support DirectX 9.
l Your Graphics Card must support Pixel Shader 2.0 but most of the new graphics cards do support.
l Your Grahics Card must support WDDM (windows vista display driver model).
l The graphics settings should be set to 32bit.
l Your Graphic card should have 60MB of Graphics memory (128MB for Aero).
l You should also have a memory of atleast 512MB (RAM).
If you do not have Pixel Shader 2.0 support in your Graphic Card, then also i'd suggest you to try the tweak.

STEPS:
1) Open Registry Editor by Pressing the Win Key + R and typing “Regedit.exe” (without quots). Press continue on UAC.
2) Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER > Software > Microsoft >Windows > DWM.
3) On the right hand side, open the Composition key and change it to 1. Now open CompositionPolicy and set its value to 2.
4) Now create a DWORD value named Glass and give it a value of 1 and another DWORD valuse named ForceSoftwareD3D and give it a value of 0.

5) Now click the Start Button and type services.msc in the search box and press enter.
6) Now search for Desktop Windows Manager Session Manager and click on the restart button. Restart your Windows and now you will be able to see the Vista Standard option in the Windows Color and Appereance.




When you Apply the Standard Look, your Windows will look some what like this:









Vista Glass: My favorite GUI feature of Windows Vista is the Glass Effect. When you apply the Glass Effect, your Desktop look sumthing like this:



This screen shot is taken from VISTAVG theme by Vishal Gupta.

Glass Effect requires a lot of Graphic Card and Memory (RAM), so i'd suggest you to have atleast 70MB of Graphics Card and 480MB of Memory (RAM).
In the first tweak you created a DWORD value Glass but this Registry Hack rarely enable Glass on Vista Home Basic, so i'd suggest you to Download VistaGlazz. It is a utility which enable user to apply 3rd party Visual Themes and somehow enables Vista Glass Effect on Maximised Windows.
NOTE: It is not possible to enable full Vista Glass Effect on Windows Vista Home Basic by any means.

Also try this Registry Tweak to enable Glass Effect on unsupported Graphics Cards:
STEPS:
1) Open Registry Editor by pressing the Start button + R and typing Regedit.exe.
2) Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE > Software > Windows > DWM.
3) Create a DWORD value named EnableMachineCheck and assingn it a value of 0. Also create another DWORD value named Glass and give it a value of 1.
4) Restart your Windows
After you patch the files using Vista Glazz, it will enable Glass Effect on your Home Basic machine on Maximised Windows.


As you can see, that the Glass Effect is enabled but only on the Maximised Windows. You will also notice that the taskbar will also show Glass Effect when you maximise any window.


Vista Flip 3D: In Vista Home Premium\Ultimate\Business, there is a cool new feature known as Flip 3D. Flip 3D is the alternate to the standard alt+tab function. In Vista Home Basic, Flip 3D is not available and it can not even be enable through any kind of Registry Tweak.



The coolest alternate to Vista Flip 3D GUI feature is TopDesk 1.5. Unfortunately it is a Paid Software. Though there are many free alternates to Flip 3D but they are very Memory Consuming and hence not fit for Vista Home Basic.
When You Install TopDesk 1.5, you can configure it through TopDesk Option.



Here in the ScreenShot you can see the Tile All Windows is set to Tab+Win but pressing Win+Tab will also do the same. It even has option for only Application Windows.
The Drawback with this software are:

• It is Paid.
• It does not shows Desktop as an option while fliping.

Live TaskBar: Live Taskbar is another cool eyecandy feature available only on Vista Home Premium\Ultimate\Business. This GUI feature pops a small preview of the minimzed Windows or application. Like Flip 3D and Glass, this feature also can not be activated on Vista Home Basic through any Registry Tweak.
In Vista Home Basic when you take your cursor over any minimized window or application, it just pops up the name of that window or application.


To enable Live TaskBar, you need to install a Software named Visual ToolTip. It is a freeware and does not utilises much system resources. Using Visual ToolTip you can even control the size of the preview that you wish to view.


Download's:
Ø VistaGlazz
Ø Visual ToolTip
Ø TopDesk 1.5

Final Word: I hope this article is useful to you. You can Download the PDF version here. For more detail you can PM me or just pay a visit to my blog:
techabhi.wordpress.com

[Charan]

Very well done . 5 given

Very good tutorial. Thanks

[nvidia]

Nice tutorial.

Nice Tutorial..!!!

[anandk]

Nice presentation !!!

[ravi_9793]

Nice one mate ..
Good

[BBThumbHealer]

nice 1 .....awesome !

[New]

Superb tut...

[Gigacore]

good tutorial dude.. its simply awesome.. keep up the good work

[The Conqueror]

Nice tutorial

[Abhishek Dwivedi]

thx a lot guys...hope u all like it...

[Abhishek Dwivedi]

also chk this tut here...
http://www.winvistaclub.com/g25.html
thx anandk

[topgear]

Very Very Great job. A great help for vista home basic users who were refrained from vista's eye candy by micro$oft

But Micro$oft will not be happy with this