Grrr .. I've been running Windows 7 RC for a while now as part of the rollout to Microsoft Partners and I've had no problems with it at all.  However, tonight I decided to vape my main machine and install my shiny new Windows 7 Ultimate DVD.  But when it booted I had no Aero (this is the effect that gives glass and transparency effects on menus etc).  It's one of those features you don't think you will miss but believe me - when it's gone you REALLY miss it!  Having tried everything I had a little delve into the registry and found this hack that will get Aero running (by the way, if your graphics card doesn't support Aero, if you have no idea what Aero is, or if you don't know what a registry hive is then please don't do this but go to www.busybirdcomputers.co.uk and ask for help).


Open Registry Editor (Vista Button > Search > RegEdit).

  1. Open HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\DWM

    If the DWM registry key is not found, right click on Windows and then select New -> Key to create new branch and name it as DWM.

  2. In the right details pane, create a new DWORD (32-bit value) named UseMachineCheck, and set its value to 0.
  3. In the right details pane, create a new DWORD (32-bit) Value named Blur, and set its value to 0.
  4. In the right details pane, create a new DWORD (32-bit) Value named Animations, and set its value to 0.
  5. Restart the Desktop Window Manager Session Manager in Services in Control Panel

This worked beautifully for me and I can now tell you that Vista 7 Ultimate is absolutely brilliant - it's a lot faster than the Release Candidate and (on my hardware) runs a lot faster than Vista Ultimate.

So tonight I will be installing:

  1. Microsoft Office 2007 Enterprise Edition
  2. Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Professional
  3. Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate Beta 2
  4. Microsoft Expression Web 3
  5. Microsoft Expression Studio 3
  6. Microsoft SQL Server 2008

This will take a while (including service packs, updates, etc) and I cannot wait to play with the new build.  All I need now is the next version of Office, the release version of Visual Studio 2010 and I'll be chuffed to bits.  I'll keep you posted on anything else I find.

Remember, Ladybird Internet Ltd is a Microsoft OEM Partner as well so if you want to upgrade to Windows 7 please contact us.