I was supposed to start my whole Windows Vista blogging on Friday September 8th with my very 1st Productivity Tip for Vista but I was still suffering from connection jitters 
. And I need to work on Jaxon Rice's Kid Congo blog skin that I'm using; before I can publish that, mainly to let me fit in images atleast 500px in width so they can have noticeable details.
Since the 6th of this month I've been running Windows Vista RC1 build 5600 on my office workstation (yeah I was bold and stupid enough) and on my home machine. I've reverted back to xp SP2 on my workstation but that's not because of performance issues, I will cover software compatibility - specifically Office 2003 issues in a domain environment in a different post. Coming back to Aero…
The official Windows Vista specifications for a Aero capable PC are:
A Windows Vista Premium Ready PC includes at least:
- 1 GHz 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor1.
- 1 GB of system memory.
- Support for DirectX 9 graphics with a WDDM driver, 128 MB of graphics memory (minimum)2, Pixel Shader 2.0 and 32 bits per pixel.
- 40 GB of hard drive capacity with 15 GB free space.
- DVD-ROM Drive3.
- Audio output capability.
- Internet access capability.
Based on the official specifications given above one would think that an intel GMA900 class graphics must have no problems with Aero. Wrong! Despite possessing 8 times the minimum required graphics bandwidth on top of being a DX9 card with Pixel Shader 2 support and 128 MB of graphic memory no GMA900 graphics chipset machine (like the 915G) runs on Aero. Many people are saying that Intel will probably come up with a WDDM driver for this chipset and it seems with the tremendous customer pressure this may happen sooner than it would, otherwise. So let's keep an eye for that. I had to say I had never installed any of the prior builds on my work machine as I knew it will appear to be a sloth for a performance freak like me. But when I finally decided to install RC1 on it, I had no doubt that I will be seeing the still ugly Vista "Windows Standard" theme. I had to say that it was a big dissapointment.
The 2nd issue I've observed involves the UAC confirmation dialog. Even on a machine with the Aero theme when you see the UAC prompt, the dialog window is in the "Standard" theme, and there is no glass. I know I won't be the only person who is bothered by this. And although it's more of an aesthetic issue, it still becomes a performance issue as it asks a very basic question. If a machine is Aero capable and is currently using the Aero theme why isn't the UAC dialog prompt window using the same theme? Let's just hope this behavior won't be there when Vista reaches the RTM milestone.