A few months ago I upgraded from Windows XP to Vista (64-bit). I must say I’m impressed with Vista so far and enjoy using it. One of the things I had been hearing about was the new Aero interface. After installing Vista I thought, “this new interface is ok, but it’s nothing special, why was everyone talking about it?” I didn’t think much about it, but one day I discovered something called the “Windows Experience Index”.
You can find this rating in the Control Panel under System or alternatively under “Performance Information and Tools”. Basically, Vista can check various parts of your system and assign a rating to each part (on a scale of 1 – 5.9). The parts are: Processor, Memory (RAM), Graphics, Gaming graphics, and Primary hard disk. After examining your system, Vista will determine a “base score” which you can supposedly use as a reference for purchasing software in the future (e.g. Will it run on my system?).
That sounds like an interesting little tool but not very important. However, I discovered the importance of the Windows Experience Index after installing Vista. I’m not sure if this is a common problem or it was just a fluke, but when I did a fresh install of Vista the Windows Experience Index was set to 1.0 and it was never updated. Since this value was set so low, Vista turned off almost the entire Aero interface by default. After I found this value in the Control Panel and updated it, my computer received a base score of 4.0 (5.4 on the Aero rating). Immediately after the test finished, Vista automatically enabled all of the Aero interface features and my Vista experience immediately changed.
Now I could see what all the talk about Aero was about – I was completely missing out before! I now had transparent windows, new effects when minimizing or maximizing windows, enhanced previews of programs in the taskbar or when alt tabbing, the new window switcher, and a whole lot more.
As a first time Vista user I didn’t realize what I was missing. I also didn’t realize I had to manually update the Windows Experience Index or manually enable the Aero features in the Control Panel. It seems like Vista should have automatically prompted me to update the Windows Experience Index shortly after completing the installation. My system’s graphics capabilities are more than enough for Aero, but it had turned off all the features by default.
So if your index rating is still at 1.0 you should definitely have Vista update that value and then you can be sure you are getting the full experience with Aero.
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