It is always interesting and exciting whenever Microsoft rolls out yet another Windows operating system. This is particularly true for those of us that are not exactly happy with our current Windows operating system – the prospect of a new one that might work better or at least resolve some of the biggest problems we have with our current version is intriguing, to say the least. But a new Windows operating system is not cheap. In fact, it is rather expensive! And you do not want to rush out and grab a copy only to get it home and find out that it does not do what you expected it to do, or, even worse, will
This was an issue that many users faced with Vista. While Vista had a lot of shiny features and bright ideas, many people just did not have the system hardware to support all of them and were stuck with a poorly performing operating system because of it. Do not be one of those people – make sure that you are getting what you need and that your computer can actually support it before you buy.
One of the biggest and most interesting features of Windows 7 that Microsoft is really trumpeting is its new Aero desktop theme. The Windows 7 Aero desktop offers you new and flashy visuals that make things more interesting, with subtle animations that purport to make everything look smoother and more effortless when you navigate through the various windows and little tricks and features that make it more fun and add some extra functionality.
With the Windows 7 Aero desktop theme, you get things like Aero Shake and Aero Peek. Aero Shake is for those of us that have a habit of letting our Desktops get really cluttered up with a ton of open windows, folders, files and applications. If you have a ton of things open at the same time, but you find yourself needing to focus on just one thing for a moment, then you can use Aero Shake to grab the title bar of that one thing, and quickly jerk it to the left and right a couple of times – this “shakes” the window and automatically makes all of the other open but non active windows on your desktop disappear! When you want them all to come back, just shake it again, and they will automatically all reappear, looking as if nothing had changed. The Aero Peek feature, on the other hand, lets you make any open windows on the desktop completely translucent for a moment so you can see straight through them all – no matter how many layers of windows and files and applications you have open – straight down to the desktop, letting you see and even access all of your desktop icons and items when you need them. Aero Peek eliminates the need to close and minimize a bunch of windows just to get at your desktop icons.
There are other Aero features, too, that you can use, but the important thing to know here is that you can't use all these flashy features if your computer doesn't have the right hardware to run them. If you are considering buying Windows 7 and want to use the Aero desktop theme, then your computer must meet the below minimum requirements:
- 1 gigabyte of RAM
- a 1 GHz 32 bit or 64 bit CPU (central processing unit or processor)
- a 128 megabyte graphics card
Aero also needs a DirectX 9 class graphics processor that can support a Windows Display Driver Model Driver, as well as Pixel Shader 2.0 in hardware and 32 bits per pixel.
These are just the basic and minimum requirements. For best results, you may want to have better hardware, especially when it comes to your graphics processor.
