Disable Windows Aero via Vista Registry
Other than option to disable or turn off Windows Aero Glass 3D transparency effects via graphical user interface (GUI), it’s also possible to manually and directly edit the corresponding registry key in Windows Vista to achieve the same effect to run on Windows Aero Basic instead. This is especially useful if Windows Vista is having problem and unable to boot up normally, especially in case where wrong or incorrect driver for graphic card has been installed and cause instability. If Windows Vista unable to boot up and log on normally, the only alternative option is to boot up to safe mode, where you can only disable Windows Aero via editing the registry.
To disable Windows Aero Glass theme in Windows Vista by editing registry, simply follow the below steps. Mind that the change in registry editor are effective instantaneous and applied immediately, and there is no undo function. So proceed with care as any mistake may corrupt the Windows.
- Click on Windows Start button, and type “regedit” in the Instant Search box at the bottom.
- Search result should return just one single entry named “regedit” in the pane above. Click on the “regedit” in the search result. Click on Continue button if any User Account Control dialog window appears with security warning and asking for confirmation and permission to continue.
- Expand and navigate to the following registry key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\DWN
- On the right pane, there is an registry entry named ColorizationColor with type as DWORD. Right click on ColorizationColor, and select Delete on the right click menu. Click on OK to confirm the deletion.
- Then right click on registry value titled Composition (type DWORD) and select Modify. Change the value to 0 (by default is 1).
- Restart the computer.
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Entries (RSS)
April 2nd, 2009 16:12
Thx very much!
Vista rox 
April 2nd, 2009 13:28
Disabling Vista Aero via registry worked perfectly fine for me, on my Vista Home Premium PC. By the way, what exactly is the other “normal” Vista’s manual way???
April 2nd, 2009 01:55
Hi,
@Armand: You either have Aero disabled or you are looking in the wrong place. I found the keys on both Vista SP1 and Windows 7 7057Build.
However, this did not work for Windows 7.
November 18th, 2008 22:33
[...] you can easily disable the Windows Aero effect. You can opt to shut it down totally via some changes to the registry. Alternately, you can choose to enable and disable through the normal Vista’s manual way [...]
September 5th, 2008 01:18
There is no DWN key there is DWM. And there is also CompositionPolicy, and there was no key called ColorizationColor. Maybe this is a Vista SP1 change?
Either way the tip didn’t work.