I did the whole set the composition or whatever it is to 1 and compositionpolicy to 2. (im guessing that means set the value data to 1 & 2 with hexadecimal)

Then went to command using administrator privlages and typed 'net stop uxsms' and 'net start uxsms' seems like it worked. went in to personalize and looked for the glass things and nothing. 3d flip didnt work either.

They got rid of that hack back in RC1 I think it was...

Is your video card capable? Do you have WDDM (i think that's the acronym right?) drivers installed?

dont know if its capable. probably not and i only have 512mb RAM. dont know what wddm is. theres no more hacks for this?

No there are no known hacks, to get aero you have to get a new graphics card.

What type of card do you have now?

Don't forget that microsoft made this impossible (for now) to do, for a reason. They didn't do it to **** you off.

ur just going to have to live with out it or buy a new card

i'm havin the same problem with my pc with a 7300gs; aero worked yesterday, now it doesn't want to.

To enable aero, one should have a chipset set above Intel 915, like 945 or 965. 915 chipset supports only XPDM (XP based driver) and it does not support WDDM( Windows Vista based driver). According to Intel site, it's not coming up with a Vista based driver for 915, so you can't use aero with 915.
I am not sure if adding a new graphics card would do any better. I am yet to confirm that. If any one of you know, let me know.

do not forget the following also : even when you have a wdm capable graphics card, if your overall rating is less then 3.0, aero will not work (unless you do a registry hack, and put the changed values in readonly for the system).

so for an aero desktop you should have these things :
- minimum system rating = 3.0
- wdm capable graphics card & drivers

cheers

my overall rating is 2.0 and aero works fine.
in fact, i think it worked when it said 1.0 on the RC2 thing

2. In the System window, click Windows Experience Index.

If you have a score of 2 or higher, you’re fine for browsing the Web, reading e-mail, and using Office apps. If you have a WEI lower than 3, you can’t run the translucent, 3d Aero interface. A base score of 4 or higher means you can run all the new Windows Vista features without slowing down, including recording and playing back HDTV. A base score of 5 is the fastest computer available at the time Windows Vista was released, but we’ll certainly see faster computers soon.
To improve your WEI, start by updating as many of your drivers as possible. The easiest way to do this is to run Windows Update by clicking Start, typing Update, and then clicking Windows Update. Then, click Check for updates, and install any available hardware updates.

source : http://www.vistaclues.com/windows-experience-index-wei/

so you explain to me how you are running aero effects with no reg hack at a rating of 1.0????

I am a computer tech and I have built over 200 computers so I am going to say this once.

YOU DO NOT NEED a RATING above 3.0 to run the translucent effects of Aero. It ran just find on a system that got 2.4 up at work a few days ago. However I did have to go in to the appearance settings and set it. And I am just running a lowly 9600 on my laptop here and Aero works great on it.

my dads laptop is a dv1000 from hp and he gets a 1.0. i tried the registry hack thinger and it still doesn't work and he would like to have the flip3d thing like my desktop.

My fx5500 is rated a 2.0 but I hope I can still get Aero and a much higher score on my 7600GT using nvidia's drivers. Does it actually affect aero to use nvidia's drivers and WEI as well?

that'll do the trick.

I'm using a 7600GT with the latest nvidia drivers and it's working perfectly.

If for some reason, you are unable to enable or run or start Aero feature in Vista, here are some troubleshooting steps you can try :

First, ensure that your version of Vista has Aero. Home Premium, Business & Ultimate have Aero.
Also ensure that your Graphic card supports WDDM (Windows Display Driver Model)
Next, right-clicking on the desktop, select Personalize.
Click on Themes and select the default Windows Vista themes.
Next, in Windows Color & Appearance, ensure that Enable Transparency is checked.

Now, inspite of this, you still find that Aero does not work, or your Aero has stopped working, simply copy-paste the following command in Vista Start Menus Search Box, and hit Enter.

rundll32.exe Dwmapi.dll,DwmEnableComposition

This will re-enable Aero by flushing it. From VISTA TROUBLESHOOTING TIPS.

I installed Home Premium (using Anytime Upgrade) just to see what the Aero fuss is about, to be honest it was just distracting and when maximized windows looked very ugly. I'm glad i didn't decide to buy it, back to XP Pro.