The big news about Windows Vista SP1, whose Release Candidate became public a couple of days ago, is its improved performance and reliability, thanks to over 400 hotfixes and updates. However, that’s only part of the story.
New Hardware Support
* Support for GPUs supporting DirectX 10.1, which improves 3D rendering (more…)
Windows Vista is without a doubt the most user experience oriented operating system ever to come out of Redmond. Windows Aero, although not as revolutionary and innovative as Microsoft is applauding it to be, is a new design in terms of graphical user interface and a divergent visual perspective in comparison to Vista’s successor, Windows XP, for that matter. And in addition to the graphical UI, Microsoft has also revamped the logon process. Microsoft failed to deliver the same volume of eye candy to the logon visuals as it did to Windows Aero, but in terms of small details, it really hits the spot.
And speaking of small details, there are a couple of visual tweaks delivered by Andreas Verhoeven, that will really serve to pimp up your desktop. In the screenshots included at the bottom you will be able to observe the details added through the deployment of Glass Toasts, Thumbnail Sizer and 3D User Picture. Trust me, it’s the little things that count, and Verhoeven simply took a few basic elements of Vista and tweaked them. (more…)
In early builds of Windows Vista, testers were shown a new 3D interface powered by the Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) that was filled with animations of all sorts. This interface was very cool looking. However, because of delays, Microsoft had to cut the use of WPF in the UI and most of the “WOW” was removed.
Thankfully, there are some very talented developers out there that have made utilities to bring back the excitement of the cut features. The one I am covering in this article, is the animated user picture shown on the Start Menu.
Using a great utility called 3D User Picture, you can easily make your start menu look just like the video above. (more…)
Dell Inc. has recently started gaining some popularity as a company very fond of the Linux operating systems. The story started with Dell’s nice initiative of answering the users who demanded some Linux-based products on IdeaStorm forum. At that time, Dell announced the four Ubuntu-based systems which addressed the open source fans.
Soon after that, Dell was to add two other systems to this catchy offer and then announced they’re trying to develop a strategy for distributing them outside the United Stated too. After such offer, (more…)
In case you have deleted the one on your taskbar by error, here’s how you can do it Right click on your desktop.
Select New > Shortcut. Copy-Paste RunDll32 DwmApi #105 into the location box > Next. In name enter Flip3D, and click on Finish. Copy/Cut-Paste your new shortcut where ever you want.
A copy of the Flip 3D icon is present in each user profile, and also in the Default user profile. Follow these steps to restore the icon to your user account: (more…)
Cool new Flip 3D, a alt+tab replacement with window+tab.This flip 3d experience can be sometimes so worst to see due to its slow speed due to inappropriate video adapters.
So its better to make Flip 3D perform much faster and smoother by limiting the number of windows it draws on your screen.
Follow the step by step procedure: (more…)
DirectX 9.0c is a very useful application for running and displaying applications rich in multimedia elements
Microsoft DirectX is a group of technologies designed to make Windows-based PCs an ideal platform for running and displaying applications rich in multimedia elements such as full- color graphics, 3D animation, video and rich audio.
DirectX 9.0 includes security and performance updates, along with many new features across all technologies, which can be accessed by applications using the DirectX 9.0 APIs. (more…)
The Vista era has officially begun. The question is, has the world changed? Not yet, although I think it’s inevitable that it will.
I’ve been using the shipping version of Vista for about three months, and although I’m impressed overall, it’s still full of nagging annoyances. The wireless networking, for example, seems to work haphazardly, and driver support is still inadequate. Take 3D graphics drivers, for example. nVidia can’t seem to get its act together with a stable driver release, and AMD’s ATI division isn’t doing much better.
I downloaded ATI’s Vista update, called Catalyst 7.1, and it gave my sleek, new 22-inch View-Sonic widescreen LCD monitor a case of iridescent chicken pox. Dialing the driver down to 16-bit color solved the problem but produced a less-than-breathtaking image. So I reverted all the way back to Microsoft’s Vista driver for my ATI card. My image isn’t speedy, but at least it’s clean. (more…)
Sometimes instability problems with your video card occurs. To see if the problems are caused by the card itself you’ll have to test it in the DirectX menu.
1. Click Start and then open ” RUN ” .
2. Type in the box ” dxdiag ”
3. In the menu that appeared click on the ” Display ” tab.
4. Now in the ” DirectX Features ” section click the ” Test Direct Draw ” and ” Test Direct 3D ” buttons. You’ll be asked if you see some boxes and logos spinning answer with yes or no, after you finish all the tests you’ll see the results, if you had any errors or not.
If you had errors the problems usually come from a instable video card or corrupted drivers.
