Windows Aero

The Windows Aero experience

Windows Aero builds on the basic Windows Vista user experience and offers Microsoft's best-designed, highest-performing desktop experience. Using Aero requires a PC with a compatible graphics adapter and running a Premium or Business edition of Windows Vista.

A noticeably new element of the Aero experience is the translucent effect of Aero Glass, featuring dynamic reflections and smooth animations. The glass windows create an open, lightweight environment―and more importantly, help you to better focus on your content, rather than on the surrounding interface.

Two exciting new Aero features, Windows Flip and Windows Flip 3D, provide a new way to confidently manage the windows on your desktop, so you can see them in a new visually striking, yet convenient way. Beyond the new graphics and visual polish, the Windows Aero desktop experience performs as elegantly and professionally as it looks, with smoother window handling, increased graphics stability, and glitch-free visuals. All of which give you a simple, comfortable, and high-quality experience.

Glass

Aero features windows that are truly translucent. In addition to giving the desktop a more polished look and feel, the effect of glass allows you to more easily focus on the contents contained within a window, and also provides better context for the surrounding elements on your desktop while you're working.



Aero Glass creates a truly translucent window, keeping the focus on your content and helping you to keep track of other windows on your desktop.

Dynamic windows

In Windows Vista, windows are dynamic. When minimized, a window will subtly animate to a specific location on the taskbar, making it easier to locate when you need it later.
Taskbar thumbnails

With Windows Aero, live taskbar thumbnails show you the contents of the windows that are currently open, in the background, or minimized in the taskbar. When you pause your mouse over a window tile on the taskbar, you see the thumbnail of the "live" contents of that window without having to bring it to the forefront of your screen.



Thumbnails show you the content contained in minimized windows in your taskbar.

Windows Flip

Windows Flip is an update of the feature known as ALT+TAB in previous versions of Windows. With Aero, Windows Flip shows you live thumbnails of your open windows instead of generic icons, making it easier to identify the window you're looking for. It even lets you instantly minimize all the windows on your desktop.



Windows Flip is an update to ALT+TAB that displays open windows as live thumbnails.

Windows Flip 3D

With Aero, Windows Flip 3D creates a view of your open windows in a three-dimensional stack on your desktop. Using the Windows logo+TAB keys, you can flip through the open windows to quickly locate and select the window you want.



Windows Flip 3D provides the same functionality as ALT+TAB, with the added ability to see all open windows simultaneously, as well as a much larger representation of what is in each window.

Smoother window performance

When using Windows Aero, open windows glide smoothly on your screen when you move or resize them. There are no redraw artifacts, latency, or "tearing" effects that you sometimes see, particularly in windows that display dynamic content such as video. Using Aero will even reduce legacy graphics driver-related problems on your system, giving you an even more confident and stable Windows desktop experience.

Some product features are only available in certain editions of Windows Vista and may require advanced or additional hardware.

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