Create a Shortcut to Enable/Disable Aero Transparency in 7 / Vista
In the interests of exposing all of the secrets in Windows Vista, I’ve decided to explain how to create a shortcut that turns on or off the transparency in Windows Vista. I don’t find this especially useful, but I’m sure it will be relevant to at least one of the readers.
Update: This same tip works identically in Windows 7.
This tip is nothing new, and seems to have been featured on dozens of sites recently, but there seems to be a misunderstanding… this mechanism will not turn off Aero or the compositing engine, it simply disables the transparency.
Manually Enable/Disable Aero Transparency
You can achieve the same result by right-clicking on the Desktop and choosing Personalize and then “Window Color and Appearance”
You should see the “Enable transparency” checkbox in this screen, which works immediately.
Create Aero Transparency Shortcut
Right-click anywhere and choose New \ Shortcut, and then enter in one of the following into the Location box to create the new shortcut.
Turn Aero Transparency Off
rundll32.exe dwmApi #104
Turn Aero Transparency On
rundll32.exe dwmApi #102
For purposes of illustration, I’ve got the same screenshot with Aero transparency turned on and off… but I really am just trying to show off the fun Mario wallpaper.
With Aero Transparency On:
And with Aero Transparency Off:
Enjoy!
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Great tip for those of us who like to make our games run as smooth as possible. I am only assuming that having aero off would help. Keep em coming.
nevermind about that^^. I didn’t realize it was only for transparency
@rothgar
Yeah… that’s why I said it’s not actually that useful =)
If you want to turn Aero off for a game, what you can do is edit the shortcut properties and on the Compatibility tab check the option for “Disable desktop compositing”
I’m going to put that into an article for tomorrow, actually.
on a interesting side note, when you do this it reclaims like 30mb of ram from the dwm.exe in my task manager. turn it off and then back on and the memory stays gone from the dwm.exe. definitely a useful trick IMO. ill be using it when my computer starts to go nuts.
might be nice enough to even run the thing every 30 minutes on my computer to get the memory back. well, maybe not as i have 2 gig of ram so it really wont matter getting 30mb ram. maybe more useful for others.
this is really cool, now if only there was a shortcut 2 switch between Classic and Aero.. hmmmm
Too fancy for me
yay,now i can run wamp without any problems
darn my laptop doesn’t have that aero transparency thingy! hey… is there something i could do to activate or download any thing to have that aero transparency thing?! i’d be expecting your reply dude.
to eishca:
if you dont have areo, your computer doesnt have the graphics card to be capable of it. it wont let you turn it on if vista judges your laptop cant turn it on.
TO : Ju1c3
Im sorry but that is -WRONG-
Every vista and XP can run a program with transperancy
Download the program named Glass 2K
TO: Zawert
not wrong. vista judges your computer with built in tools and if it thinks your computer cant run areo, then it wont. plain and simple. no one ever said anything about 3rd party apps.
and why would you want to turn it on anyways if you have a slower computer? to make your computer slower?
You can easily turn off Windows Aero or turn on Windows Aero by having two options on the right-click of Desktop. Copy and paste the text above: -
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\Background\shell\Turn Aero Off]
@=”Turn Aero Off”
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\Background\shell\Turn Aero Off\command]
@=”Rundll32.exe dwmApi #104″
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\Background\shell\Turn Aero On]
@=”Turn Aero On”
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\Background\shell\Turn Aero On\command]
@=”Rundll32.exe dwmApi #102″
Save the file as Aero.reg, merge it and you will have two options to turn off or on Aero. Make sure you’re running Windows Aero.
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\Background\shell\Turn Aero Off]
@=”Turn Aero Off”
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\Background\shell\Turn Aero Off\command]
@=”Rundll32.exe dwmApi #104″
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\Background\shell\Turn Aero On]
@=”Turn Aero On”
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\Background\shell\Turn Aero On\command]
@=”Rundll32.exe dwmApi #102″
When merging the above the menu items appear but I get the following error message.
This file does not have a program associated with it for performing the action. Create an association in the Set Association control panel.
Reference the above issue, I used the following shortcuts to toggle DWM on / off
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\Background\shell\Start DWM]
@=”Start DWM”
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\Background\shell\Start DWM\command]
@=”net start uxsms”
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\Background\shell\Stop DWM]
@=”Stop DWM”
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\Background\shell\Stop DWM\command]
@=”net stop uxsms”
Note: DWM must be running, added the following menu item to above:
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\Background\shell\Flip3D]
@=”Flip3d”
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\Background\shell\Flip3d\command]
@=”Rundll32.exe dwmApi #105″