Hack to Enable Windows Aero in Vista Home Basic Edition
Windows Vista Home Basic edition does not come with Windows Aero interface which provides glass transparency effects Aero experience in Windows Vista (features comparison), as Microsoft intended for Vista Home Basic edition to be used in home for basic computing needs only. Thus a lot of functionalities and features have been stripped off Vista HB compared with premium version of Vista, including Aero desktop experience. This is done in part also because of higher hardware system configuration that needs to run Aero Glass.
Windows Aero needs a graphics card that supports DirectX 9 acceleration, has WDDM-compatible driver and minimum 128 MB of graphics memory plus Pixel Shader 2.0 with 32 bits per pixel support. This requirement is too demanding for users who likely to purchase Vista HB edition, where the machine tends to be cheaper and of lower specification such as with just built-in on-board Super VGA graphics card.
However, if you accidentally buy Vista Home Basic, or your computer purchased from OEM brand comes with Vista Home Basic only, but the computer has the necessary CPU processing power, memory and graphics card to support Windows Aero, here is a simple registry hack that allows Windows Aero user experience to be turned on or enabled in Windows Vista Home Basic edition.
To enable Windows Aero desktop theme:
- Click on Vista Start button, then enter “regedit” into Instant Search box. Click on the registry editor found in the search results list.
- Navigate to the following registry key and select (highlight) the key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\DWM
- In the right pane, you should see there are 2 value names, namely Composition and Composition Policy. Modify and edit the value date of Composition to 1 and Composition Policy to 2.
- Restart the Desktop Windows Manager Session Manager by issuing the following command in a command prompt window with administrative privileges:
net stop uxsms
and then,
net start uxsms
Alternatively, you can also use Services applet in Control Panel to restart the DWM service.
- Reboot Windows Vista Home Basic system.
Share and contribute or get technical support and help at My Digital Life Forums.
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Entries (RSS)
March 22nd, 2007 07:58
[...] uxsms. Riavviate il pc e godetevi le trasparenze, sempre che il vostro pc regga lo sforzo. [via|MyDigitalLife] PUBBLICITÀ PUBBLICITÀ postato da Cristian il giovedì 22 marzo 2007 [...]
March 22nd, 2007 16:14
“This is done in part also because of higher hardware system configuration that needs to run Aero Glass.”
I know that’s what MS is sometimes saying, but I don’t really believe that. If that was the only reason, they’d be willing to make Vista look as good as possible on the hardware at least, and enable it depending on the system performance scan that’s done at the first run of Vista.
If this was part of their intent, why do Vista Home Premium scale back when the graphics card can’t handle it automatically (to support inferior hardware), and not Basic?
March 22nd, 2007 19:48
[...] Avviate regedit (scrivetelo nel search box se non sapete come avviarlo) e a questo punto cercate questa chiave: HKEY_CURRENT_USER / Software / Microsoft / Windows / DWM. Modificate le due voci presenti, Composition e Composition Policy rispettivamente con i valori 1 e 2. Riavviate il Desktop Windows Manager Session Manager scrivendo nella finestra del prompt di comando, con privilegi di amministratore, questi due comandi, net stop uxsms , e poi, net start uxsms. Riavviate il pc e godetevi le trasparenze, sempre che il vostro pc regga lo sforzo. [via|MyDigitalLife] [...]
March 22nd, 2007 21:31
What about Media Center, DVD maker, Games, etc… Please tell me how to enable them on vista business
March 26th, 2007 14:34
I opened regedit and changed the values however,,,Composition was already at 1,, and Composition Policy was 0.I changed it to 2,followed all instructions to the letter. nothing changed in mine.I also trieed to up composition to 2 and policy to 3,, no good .I say it doesnt work for all versions,,namely 6. P.s> I have processor score of 4.3,ramm score of 5.2,desktop performance for aero 3.2(and its shaded??) Gaming graphics(also shaded,3.2) and finally a transfer rate of 5.3. my only low(base score ) is 3.2 , is..its not in themes and when i select it from windows>search themes>aero..i find it ,,but it doesnt work. Im running an intel board D945Gnt and its fully capable of aero so my commanet is the hack dont work on my version of windows hb final.
March 26th, 2007 23:45
[...] Fonte e istruzioni su come fare le trovate su MyDigitalLife [...]
June 11th, 2007 00:21
save the data below as a *.REG file - then import it
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\DWM]
“Composition”=dword:00000001
“CompositionPolicy”=dword:00000002
July 25th, 2007 15:14
It doesn’t work!
September 29th, 2007 09:01
I have done everything as mentioned
but nothing happen
could you please help
December 5th, 2007 14:52
what a load of crap. somone should block your sit. im certain it was just a hit increase gimmick. there is not one person that as writen to say the hack works. i fail to understand why u people resort to such cheap ass tricks. ill make sure that at least the ppl i know dont come to ur site.
December 5th, 2007 16:53
max33 is a bit upset eh!
December 29th, 2007 15:24
I have done every tutorial about ‘how to enable aero on vista home basic’ but nothing happen… it makes me sick!
February 11th, 2008 13:39
[...] My Digital Life Review’s [...]
February 17th, 2008 01:40
Hey, it DOES work. but not as stonking as I had imagined…
The only thing I notice, is that there are more options to change the colors of the window frames and the title bar (of maximized windows) is a little bit transperent.
right click on desktop -> bottom entry (sry, don’t know english name) to change appearence settings -> upper entry to change colors
unfortunately there is still no button to change transparency….
and btw, does anyone how to get to this 3D-animation when switching from one task to another? Alt+Tab gives only the boring way…
Or is this only available in PREMIUM?
greetz
Flo
March 17th, 2008 20:31
Actually, this does work for anybody with more than the one brain cell - the registry hack enables the option under the ‘personalization’ control panel applet.
Right-click on desktop and select ‘Personalize’.
Select ‘Window Color and Appearance’.
Select Aero from the drop-down menu and hit ‘Okay’.
Re-open ‘Window Color and Appearance’ settings, and this time, it gives you a coloriser control for the window frames. Choose a colour and drag the slider to determine the amount of colour and translucency.
Sheesh - do you guys expect the kettle to make the tea for you?
May 11th, 2008 18:44
it doesn`t appear any aero from the drop-down menu…
May 19th, 2008 23:43
its good thank you
July 10th, 2008 21:32
it does not work on my machine.
aero theme option does not appear in the list.
is ther any other way ?
is it possible to replace the files in the Windows/Resources/Themes folder ?
July 15th, 2008 16:31
hey im a bit new to this,
i was wondering, how do you create a new branch in REGEDIT.
thanks.