Randomelements :: Blog

Hilton Locke has blogged that he has seen his first Tablet running Aero Glass, but he won't tell us which it is. All he says is "Considering that it's currently all visual effect and not really worth anything other than eye candy, it was hardly worth the effort/expense involved to make this particular Tablet run Glass".
 
So, is he talking about swapping out the graphics chip in some way? Or could he just be talking about editing the registry?
 
As you are most probably aware, Aero effects can be overridden by registry keys located here:
 
HKLM/Software/Microsoft/DWM
 
The key may not exist by default. Entering a DWord called "EnableMachineCheck" and setting it to 0 (zero) should prevent Vista from checking if the graphics processor is capable of displaying Aero. By adding another DWord called "Glass" and setting it to a value of 1 you should be able to force Aero Glass.
 
I gave this a try on my Acer C111TCi with Build 5219 and, guess what? It works! (It didn't under Beta 1). It's a little slow but I have full Glass on my Tablet including the scrolling view of Alt-Tab and the previews when hovering over items on the Taskbar.
 
I'll post a screenshot or two when I get home.