The Aero theme was introduced in Windows Vista and is the default theme in Windows 7 (learn more about Windows themes). Aero is a set of visual enhancements that make your desktop more beautiful and functional.
Characterised by translucent window borders, the Aero theme is quite resource intensive. Should you find yourself using a computer that doesn’t have the gumption, you’ll probably suffer from very poor performance. In this case, you might consider changing your Windows theme to somthing a little less… resource hungy. Microsoft are known for their self congratulatory acronyoms for products, so it’ll be no surprise to you to learn that Aero stands for Authentic, Energetic, Reflective and Open. If it was called AeroBS, then I’d take note.
Aero In Windows 7
The Aero theme in Windows 7 has a few new features:
- Taskbar Previews – hovering over a taskbar icon displays the thumbnail of that program. Hovering over the thumbnail shows a preview of that program in full view. If you have several instances of the application open (think about multiple internet browser sessions, or multiple Word documents), then they all appear for you to select one from. Marginally useful.
- Aero Peek – makes all your open windows fade from view when you hover over the Show desktop icon in the taskbar. You can then look through those open windows to see the icons, gadgets and other elements on your desktop. When you move your mouse away from the Show desktop icon, the windows solidify again. Useless.
- Aero Shake – dragging a window vigorously from side to side minimises all other windows. Shaking the window again restores them. Absolute ********.
- Aero Snap – a new way to resize open windows, simply by dragging them to the edges of your screen. Depending on where you drag a window, you can make it expand vertically, take up the entire screen, or appear side-by-side with another window. Useless.