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.
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June 23rd, 2009 13:15
i also tried it but in command prompt it displayed access is denied please help me out
June 14th, 2009 14:56
The best solution is: “Install Vista Home Pre” Come on, it’s not a big deal. You can download the Vista from torrent and activate using patches in Mydig.
June 7th, 2009 23:57
i did everything that was told to do, but i didn’t work. So i did what it said on the comments [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\DWM]
“Composition”=dword:00000001
“CompositionPolicy”=dword:00000002
save as name.reg and import it, but then it tells me that it will restore over the password DWM. and it will eliminate all the values and sub passwords of this password (DWM). will it eliminate any of my data? or will it delete anything? or will it just do it and work? any answers.
April 25th, 2009 18:18
CRAP, WASTE FUCK
April 12th, 2009 08:24
t is apparently not a big problem to enable the Vista Aero interface in Windows Vista Home Basic even though it is officially not included in that version. All you need to do is to change the values of two registry keys and restart Windows Vista afterwards. Open the registry by pressing Windows + R, typing regedit and hitting enter afterwards.
Navigate to the key Hkey_Current_User \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ DWM \ and change the value of the entry Composition to 1 and the value of CompositionPolicy to 0.
Now you can select the Aero interface by right-clicking on the desktop and selecting Personalize from the menu. Switch to Colors and Appearance and click on Classic Appearance Properties.. and choose Windows Vista Aero from the menu.
Remember, this hack still requires you to have hardware capable of running Aero (in other words, a good graphics card), and don’t go to Microsoft expecting support if things go wrong.
March 23rd, 2009 06:58
this works really good although i got it from a different site. its alot more complicated than it should be and all you really get is the ability to change to color of the open windows. you dont get any other extra stuff like enviro999 said. it does make it different colors instead of that ugly light blue.
alos you people that say it doent work the only thing that changes is the ability to go into control panel>appearence and personalization>personalization>window color and appearence. you really dont get enything else
March 14th, 2009 05:15
Wooot, danke
Besitze Vista Home Premium 64 Bit, endlich hab ich meine Aero-Benutzeroberfläche
THX
February 21st, 2009 08:08
Does not work. Thanks for nothing.
December 31st, 2008 01:09
In some cases, like with me, I had Aero on home basic already. It just depends on if your computer is “Vista Ready”. It isn’t a hack. Also, the whole process up above is useless. Just go to classic view in the colors and apperence and select Windows Vista Standard. The picture will show the Vista Basic Theme, but you get Aero, No hack. But, you really can’t call it Aero because it doesn’t have transparency, Flip 3D, the little things at the bottom when you float over the tabs, and the really cool animations.
October 10th, 2008 17:45
Adam, nobody who spells ‘you’ in that manner has a right to call bull on the aspersions I have cast on the level of intellect demonstrating by the average poster… but I digress.
It would appear that despite this hack having previously worked for me, it no longer appears to work for anybody else – perhaps as a result of patching, service packs, etc…
It is still possible to install dreamscene for other versions of Vista, however, by downloading the specific DLLs through BitTorrent. Search using your favourite torrent tracker, but do exercise the usual cautions regarding malware/viruses…
I shall test this method again the next time I have access to a (*shudder*) Vista Basic installation.
October 10th, 2008 01:07
Darles35 – You have to open CMD (Command Prompt) with administrator, so type in the search bar of the start button ‘Command Prompt’ (without quotes) and right click it and then click ‘Run as administrator’
October 10th, 2008 01:04
This is crap, absolute bull… it DOES NOT work. AND u WHITE HAWK we have more brain cells than you and it dont work. So dont insult ppl. I have changed the values to 1 and 2, and stopped and restarted the uxsms thing, and restarted vista and no option appear and no aero appears so….. what can i do