Windows 7 – How to Troubleshoot Problems with Aero Peek and Aero Shake

Posted on November 12, 2009 at 5:26 am

Windows 7 has some cool new features like Aero Shake and Aero Peek. Aero Peek is a quick way to see what’s on your desktop by simply moving your mouse to the right edge of the taskbar.

You can also quickly bring up another program to the front by moving your mouse over the thumbnail preview in the taskbar. Aero Shake is a nifty feature that lets you shake a window and automatically have all other open windows minimized. Shake it again and all the windows come back.

Lastly Aero Snap lets you quickly resize windows by dragging them to the edges of your computer screen. Depending on where you drag it, you can make the window full screen, expand vertically, or appear side-by-side with another window.

If Aero is not working properly on your Windows 7 machine, you can use the Aero Troubleshooter to try and fix the problem.

First, click on the Start button and then type in aero. Now click on the Find and fix problems with transparency and other visual effects link.

troubleshoot aero

A new wizard dialog will open. Make sure you click Advanced to fix any problems automatically.

aero windows 7

Either the problem will be fixed or not. If not, you will get a list of items that are possible problems.

windows 7 aero

If you want to see more details about the problem, you can click on View detailed information. This will give you a list of potential issues that were checked and which ones are causing problems.

aero not working

Note that in order to use Aero in Windows 7, you first have to complete the following requirements:

  1. Make sure that you are not using Windows Home Basic since Aero is not supported in Home Basic.
  2. You have to first rate your computer using Windows Experience Index.
  3. Either you have to have DirectX 9.0 or later installed or WDDM 1.0 or later installed.

If your video card does not support Aero, then the troubleshooter will tell you. Enjoy!

» Filed Under Windows 7

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Comments

3 Responses to “Windows 7 – How to Troubleshoot Problems with Aero Peek and Aero Shake”

  1. Vineet said on : November 25th, 2009 at 12:03 am

    I like the new Aero Peek feature so that I can quickly see my desktop, but how do I actually go straight to the desktop? The second I move my mouse away from the edge of the taskbar, all the programs come back in front. Is there a way to make it similar to the Show Desktop icon in XP?


  2. Eshan said on : February 4th, 2010 at 12:48 am

    Hi Vineet, this is a belated reply and you would have probably got it figured out by now. But I am posting it anyway since it might be useful to someone else.

    To minimize all the open windows and get to the Desktop, “click” the same “button” (or area) of the taskbar instead of just “hovering” over it.


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