Make Aero Peek Display Instantly (or Disable it) in Windows 7
Aero Peek is one of the more useful new features in Windows 7… just move your mouse to the taskbar for half a second, and everything else hides so you can see the desktop or application window. But why does it take half a second?
There’s a simple little registry hack that will change the amount of time between hovering your mouse over the show desktop button in the lower right-hand corner, and the Aero Peek display showing up. The same thing should work for when you hover over an application window on the taskbar.
And of course, if you wanted to completely disable Aero Peek, we’ve got you covered for that too—just head into the taskbar properties (right-click the taskbar and use Properties), then remove the checkbox from “Use Aero Peek to preview the desktop”.
If you want to disable Aero Peek on everything, including the taskbar thumbnails, you’ll need to head into System Properties in Control Panel (search for “View advanced system settings”), and then remove the checkbox from Aero Peek there:
Manual Registry Hack to Adjust Aero Peek Delay
If you want to change the amount of time to trigger Aero Peek and tweak it for your own preferences (maybe you don’t want instant, but you want it quicker), you’ll need to use the manual registry hack. The instant variety is downloadable below.
Open up regedit.exe through the start menu search or run box, and then browse down to the following key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced
On the right-hand side, you’ll need to find the key for DesktopLivePreviewHoverTime (or create a new DWORD if it does not exist) and double-click to edit it—just make sure to flip the Base radio button over to Decimal before you make edits (unless you think in hex).
The value is in milliseconds, so if you wanted 1 second, you would use 1000, or 500 for half a second, etc. If you want to make it instant, just set to it 0 (which works fine in hex too). The default value is 500, or half a second.
Note that you’ll need to log off, and then log back on, for it to take effect.
Downloadable Registry Hack to Make Aero Peek Instant
So you went the easy route? I won’t hold it against you. Just download, extract, and double-click on the the InstantAeroPeek.reg file to enter the information into the registry. Use the other file to reverse it.
Note that you’ll need to log off, and then log back on, for it to take effect.
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I went to that registry area and didn’t have the DeskTopLiveHoverTime entry to edit. This is Windows 7 64bit.
Any ideas?
Oops, I meant I don’t have DesktopLivePreviewHoverTime.
Triple checked I was in the right location too.
@Dave: Have you tried creating missing keys and entries? Worked for me with other tweak. I use 32bit vresion though.
Cheers.
my AERO Peek box/checkoff is disabled/grayed in the taskbar properties dialog… stuck on ON
@Dave
If your copy doesn’t have that value, you can simply create a new DWORD with that name.
Or just download the registry hack file, which handles all of it for you.
Have the same problem as Dave with 64 bit. Tried applying the hack and restarted, still no increase in aero peek speed. Have a solid system too so that shouldn’t be the problem.
You can also increase the speed of the taskbar thumbnails which are displayed for running apps.
Add a DWORD at the same location as above (HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced) named: ExtendedUIHoverTime with a decimal value for the number of miliseconds.
If you’re expecting this registry change to speed up how fast thumbnails appear when you hover over an app icon, it won’t do that. James’ value (above) does that, this just speeds up how fast you can switch between thumbnails in the same stack, or the desktop preview.
I would love a hack to increase the size of the taskbar peek windows. Since I’m focused there, it might as well take the whole screen to show the options.
Tip worked great for me, does anyone know if there is a registry key to do the same thing with alt-tabbing? I would love to remove the delay from the time I press alt-tab, to it hiding all but the current window.
Thanks!
Works great
Thanks.
Why not just press Windows-Button and Space?
Nice. This is the first good win7 hack worth doing i’ve seen.
i went the lazy way and downloaded the hack. perfect…
Note that you only have to restart explorer.exe for the changes to take effect.
peek speed not increasing for me with new dword or hack. i’m in 64 bit.
still doesn’t work with 64-bit. I feel left out…
For those with 64-bit Windows 7 unable to change the peek delay with DesktopLivePreviewHoverTime, there is a solution. In the same registry location, make a DWORD called ExtendedUIHoverTime and modify the value to the time, in milliseconds, you want.