One of the most obvious niceties of Windows 7 is the Windows Aero user interface.
Windows Aero offers several unique features compared to the other UI
options available in Windows 7, including translucency, various special
effects, and even access to certain Windows features (such as the
Windows Flip 3D application-switching utility and Aero Peek).
Conversely, Windows Aero is more hardware intensive than other display
modes and can thus drain battery life more quickly than the other user
interface options. Your decision whether to use Windows Aero—shown in Figure 1—depends on how you feel about battery life, performance, and usability.
Before getting to that, however, you should also be
aware that many portable computers—especially those made before
2008—simply don't include enough graphical processing power to even run
Windows Aero. If this is the case, you will typically see the Windows 7
Basic user interface instead. (On some versions of Windows 7, there's
also an option called Windows Standard that offers an enticing middle
ground between the beauty of Windows Aero and the power management
thriftiness and performance of Windows Classic, the low-end user
interface that is designed to resemble the user interface from Windows
2000.)
Depending on your hardware, your choice might already
be made: if you install Windows 7 on a portable PC and the user
interface is set as Windows 7 Basic and not Windows Aero, then you may
be out of luck: your system is most likely not capable of displaying
Windows 7's highest-end user interface.
NOTE
It is possible
that your mobile computer can handle Windows Aero even if Windows 7
Basic appears by default. There is a chance that Windows 7 simply didn't
install the latest driver for your display hardware. Before sinking
into despair, consult the documentation for your notebook, find out
exactly which display hardware it uses, and then visit Windows Update
via the Start menu to obtain the latest driver and see if that makes a
difference. Alternately, visit the hardware maker's Web site; sometimes
the vendor offers drivers directly to consumers as well.
NOTE
If you're not the kind of person who reads
documentation, Windows 7 offers a few utilities that can help you
determine which display hardware your system is utilizing. The first is
called System Information (type System Information in Start Menu Search). Under the System Summary list on the left, choose Components => Display. You can also try the DirectX Diagnostic Tool (dxdiag in Start Menu Search): you'll see information about your display device on the Display tab of this application, shown in Figure 2.
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In order to run Windows Aero, you need a DirectX
9–compatible video card with 64MB or more of discrete graphics RAM,
depending on the resolution of your display (64MB is adequate for a 1024
× 768 display, but you need 128MB or more for higher resolutions).
Newer integrated graphics chips—the types that share RAM with the system
and are more common on notebooks—are now capable of displaying Aero.
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Assuming your machine is powerful enough to display
Windows Aero, you might still want to opt for the Windows 7 Basic user
interface because of its thriftier power management. However, Windows
Aero is more stable and reliable than other user interfaces because of
the way it interacts with the underlying system and required signed
drivers from hardware makers. Like all trade-offs, the decision is not
an easy one. Our advice is to test how your particular system behaves on
battery power while using both user interfaces. If the battery life
difference between the two is negligible, go with Windows Aero.
To change the user interface, right-click the desktop
and choose Personalize from the resulting pop-up menu. This displays
the Personalization control panel. In the top section, you can choose
between various themes, including Aero Themes, which utilize the Windows
Aero UI. As shown in Figure 3,
the Personalization control panel lets you choose between these Aero
Themes and other less impressive themes, such as Windows 7 Basic,
Windows Classic, and some high-contrast themes aimed at those with
vision handicaps.
While using Windows Aero, you can make one change
that affects the performance and battery life of Windows 7 while
retaining the other features that make Windows Aero worthwhile: you can
turn off Windows translucency by clicking Window Color in the bottom of
the Personalization control panel and then unchecking the Enable
Transparency option that appears in Window Color and Appearance, as
shown in Figure 4.
Translucency is a fun feature, but it doesn't really aid productivity
and it's a bit taxing on the battery, so this is an obvious candidate
for change.
Alternatively, you could use Windows 7 Basic instead
of Aero. To do so, click the Windows 7 Basic theme in Basic and High
Contrast Themes.
NOTE
Back during Windows Vista's development,
Microsoft promised that the OS would seamlessly move between Windows
Aero, while attached to power, and Windows Vista Basic, while the
machine was untethered and running on battery. This feature, sadly, was
never added to the final version of Windows Vista, forcing users to
manually switch between user interface modes—and it's missing in Windows
7 as well. But there is one related improvement: now, when you move
between Windows Aero and Windows 7 Basic, the transition is much
speedier. In Windows Vista, the system would often freeze up for several
long seconds, making you wait while it transitioned between themes.
