An In-Depth Look at Vista, Part 2
by Wei-Meng Lee08/16/2005
In my last article, I talked about my first experience with Windows Vista Beta 1. While some commented that it seems that Vista is nothing spectacular, it is important to know that it is still too early to pass judgment, especially because the product is still in Beta 1. Nevertheless, Beta 1 allows us a glimpse of what is to come in Beta 2 (and ultimately RTM), and most importantly, for testers to feedback on what should be incorporated in the OS and what should not. And so, in this article, I will take a closer look at some of the more advanced features of Vista.
Enabling Aero Glass
One of the most compelling reasons to try Windows Vista Beta 1 is the new Aero user interface. The Aero user interface provides a beautiful experience with transition animations. Windows are translucent, ensuring that text is easier to read. There are two levels of Aero user interface:
Aero is the baseline for all computers that do not meet the requirements for Aero Glass. Using Aero, you will not be able to see translucent windows. For Aero Glass, you need a video card that supports DirectX 9. Even if you have the video card with the prerequisites, you need to download the special LDDM (Longhorn Driver Display Model) drivers in order for them to work in Windows Vista Beta 1. At the time of writing, both ATI and nVidia has released alpha versions of their drivers for their cards.
The table below shows the nVidia card supported:
GeForce FX 5100
GeForce FX 5200
GeForce FX 5200SE
GeForce FX 5200 Ultra
GeForce FX 5500
GeForce FX 5600
GeForce FX 5600 Ultra
GeForce FX 5600SE
GeForce FX 5600XT
GeForce FX 5700
GeForce FX 5700VE
GeForce FX 5700 Ultra
GeForce FX 5700LE
GeForce FX 5800
GeForce FX 5800 Ultra
GeForce FX 5900
GeForce FX 5900 Ultra
GeForce FX 5900XT
GeForce FX 5900ZT
GeForce FX 5950 Ultra
GeForce PCX 5300
GeForce PCX 5750
GeForce PCX 5900
GeForce 6600 GT
GeForce 6600 LE
GeForce 6600
GeForce 6800
GeForce 6800 GT
GeForce 6800 LE
GeForce 6800 Ultra
GeForce 7800 GTX
Quadro FX 540
Quadro FX 1000
Quadro FX 1100
Quadro FX 1300
Quadro FX 1400
Quadro FX 3000
Quadro FX 3000G
Quadro FX 3400
Quadro FX 4000 SDI
Quadro FX 4400
Quadro NVS 280 PCI
To test Aero Glass, I reformatted my Dell Inspiron 5150 notebook (which comes with the nVidia GeForce FX 5200 graphics card) and reinstalled Windows Vista Beta 1. Aero Glass is not enabled by default, because the default driver shipped by Microsoft (for my nVidia card) does not support Aero Glass, so I need to download the LDDM driver from nVidia.
For the nVidia drivers, once the installation file is run, it will try to detect the appropriate drivers for your video card. Unfortunately, it failed to detect my video card and exited halfway through the installation. To fix this, you have to manually update the driver.
Figure 1. Installing the LDDM driver for your video card
