Small tip for people disliking Aero. (Windows 7)

[SrPx]

First, apologies for not showing UI screens in English, but I believe all items are in the same place, so is easy to deduce which options are which.

 

Also for this being way too obvious for the majority. But from what I have read in some posts, some people might not know they can do this: Almost totally disabling the visual style that aero brings, but keeping what the application needs. I've experimented no performance loss, indeed this loss could happen in XP and Vista times, but seems not anymore (I put my machine to its limits of performance every day, and is a first generation i7 with only 8gb, arcane card)

 

The first thing would obviously be to select an aero theme (right click on desktop, customize). I would advice choosing "Windows 7" standard, and probably remove that way too intense blue desktop background by hitting "desktop background" at the bottom of the themes window, and then selecting "solid color" , and choosing a custom color, I pick my very specific neutral grey.

 

You would go then to to Control Panel, then System (or if have your desktop so, right click on the machine icon, "properties"), then hit Advanced Configuration, then hit Advanced Options, and in that window, in the "Performance" area, hit the "Configuration" button (it says there you can change visual effects).  You would click the "Customize" radio button instead of the default. And you only need 4 options, actually you could leave only two (I believe first and last of my below list), but I'd recommend setting the following 4, however they might be worded in English Windows 7 version :

 

 

-Desktop Window Manager Composition

-Show thumbnails instead of icons

-Fonts smoothing

-Use visual styles in Windows and buttons.

 

If you disable font smoothing you will see bad fonts aliasing. If disable thumbnails, obviously wont see those raw files previews, not even having installed the raw cameras codec pack from MS (neither JPGs or other images thumbnails) in "open" dialog in AP (or in the whole OS).

 

Then, just right click in the desktop (or go to control panel) and hit customize, 

 

 

Then, click on "Window color"

 

 

Then select what you prefer (grey-ish is fine for me). I just hate blue color in any interface element. I prefer not to deal more with it, is quite pleasant for me as is at that point. Also, because I like simple workflows: Easy to remember, and fast to replicate, which is good if you change things more than once.

 

 

EDIT: Important...Doing so, it triggers back ON the not so cool settigns of visual glass and Windows drop shadow (well, I deeply dislike those, and don't need the extra load, and my point here is to get back some of the more sober look, less overloaded which several of us prefer) , just get back to performance settings as explained and un check those 2 :

 

(again, excuse the Spanish language, am sure you will know which are the options for visual glass and windows' drop shadows )

 

 

 

Hope it serves at least for 2% of the group of unhappy non aero win7 users

 

Edit  (15/01/2017) : Just some silly extra detail, not sure if I mentioned: if you save your themes, both your classic one, and your Aero one, is easy to switch just clicking on each theme icon. Of course, life couldn't be so simple, we are in Windows, the middle step in OSes in what is of ease of use and problem free usage without freedom in fine tuning, vs flexibility and stuff to deal with :  When clicking on the Aero one, there's 2 or 3 defaults Windows "thinks" you deeply desire to have, no mater what you  (you gotta love that in Windows, how it "knows" what you prefer... //Sarcasm)  selected, they are triggered back on (hello stupid glass, back here again!). Just deselect those as I explained above. But the colors, and etc, are kept.

Edit (13/11/2019 ) : As we approach to Windows 7 total end of support, and mostly because I like to keep information well interconnected (tends to be helpful) a more recent tutorial explaining this is in the following post .   It is explained maybe in a more succinct style (maybe as I myself have become a more brief and to the point poster, lol. Or...nah, I didn't  ) . Also, with the UI items and menus in English, but no screenshots. For some will be easier to follow, others might prefer this one (this old one here provides the extra tip for how to change the look of this minimal "aero" config, so, there's that). In case you are not following this well, feel free to visit the more recent tutorial.  Affinity is really worth it putting up with some changes in the OS, or even using a totally new Windows 10. Huge tip here: Install it CLEAN, even after a disk format, not over the Windows 7 you have. There are known issues if not, and not only with the lovely Affinity apps: I have helped solving several of those issues/cases here (initially attributed to Affinity when it was NOT the case) but also in other forums apps from other brands, not Serif. So, clean install, highly recommended. Oh, and Windows 10 has come a long way since its bad start. A lot has improved through the patches and updates, more flexibility on install, less imposed stuff. A good re-config after setup following some of the more RECENT tutorials in configuration (you end up not needing those once you get familiar with it all) do go a long way. Just be sure to check the date of the tutorial/article!. Don't use even 3 month old tutorials (neither old negative opinions/articles about Windows 10  ...) for this, much of that has been fixed. These tutorials help to remove not so great defaults about privacy and UI configuration, making of Win 10 a really pleasant ride. It is a fact. About privacy, with the right config, it kindda bothers me WAY less than using Google, google services, several government administration tasks or my phone. And I can't work without making use of those, so, anyway.... For any platform, one needs to be slightly nerdy to get the OS well configured and to one's liking (said this by a Linux passionate user), but it pays greatly in the long run , trust me on this one!. So... yeah, if you are reading between the lines.... my advice is, tho having remade my years-old tutorial (there are more instances of this which I created) my major advice (not as a guru or authority, as am none of that, but as a professional user who happily used the three platforms (Mac, Win, Linux) with no limitation or issue -I found always happy workarounds) here is to... evolve and adapt, and use Windows 10, it ain't that terrible. At ALL.  And enjoy your "Affiniting", it's a lot of fun and a professionally viable suite !     

 

[SrPx]

Indeed... must be true what developers say here that Aero (for other than Vista and XP) actually adds performance more than removes it... Am noticing kind of a snappier, faster Windows, 

[DRALBERT]

This will surprise you. I installed Affinity on my Toshiba Tecra laptop after the failure to run on my desktop. 

It installed after updating ,net to V4.6.2. Clicking on the run icon and bingo  Affinity opened and I was able to process one image as a test. Why it worked on my Toshiba must be related to the Graphic card. On my desktop I have a NVIDIA 610 that is fully updated since all the other post-processors I have works fine. However I did have similar problems last year with ON-1 software.Will not run with this card. In my research it became evident that the issue is that of the software interface coding.

Since I do all of my post-processing on my desk-top operating under WIN 7 Pro, as opposed to my Toshiba. I am hesitant to purchase AFFINITY until SERIF resolve the problem. There are to many threads in this forum with similar issues....No matter what fixes I tried to initiate AERO did not resolve the reported issue to get the software up and running. DRAlbert

[DRALBERT]

By the way, I have tried your proposed solution as specified with no success as per this thread.  Also did not have to initialize AERO on my TOSHIBA to get the install to work. It installed smoothly.. DRALBERT 

 

mall tip for people disliking Aero. (Windows 7)

[SrPx]

But you did use the command parameter that disable aero for it to run, i guess...the unsupported one... Well, they might want to make tests with that nvidia model. If it is due to the card model, they might find the issue and fix it...

 

This is a generic tut to minimize aero visual "fx" , not a fix for people that may have issues with the .net installation/some corrupt file, card driver or the card itself...

but it can serve for people not having any idea on how to install Aero in their PC, too. 

 

However I did have similar problems last year with ON-1 software

 

 

That is quite a clue, indeed... Something wrong in that machine...

[thomasp]

my issue with aero is solely that of overall color scheme (and font/smoothing-choices). it's distracting to say the least.

 

in comparison almost everything about windows classic can be changed in the GUI, including fonts, window border width and slider sizes. some colors are not accessible there but you can modify them in a text file directly. bliss.

 

when you look into changing the default aero style, you end up with pre-made non-official windows skins, some freely downloadable popular ones i caught containing viruses even. and if you want to do it all yourself then that's quite the pill to swallow since none of it seems easily accessible. compile your own skin territory, where you have to download and learn a dev environment. it seems more time-effective to just stick with classic mode then if at all possible.

 

i'm using my PC purely for graphical work, mostly 3D and affinity so far seems to be the first program i'm stumbling across that explicitly wants aero to be turned on (they just told me in another thread how to disable their check though). else this problem named aero would have not even made it onto my radar. ;)

[SrPx]

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my issue with aero is solely that of overall color scheme (and font/smoothing-choices). it's distracting to say the least.

 

 

I agree with this... That's why I added the tut, as I realized that while being very accesible in Windows, some people didn't know they can tune it down a lot, to a point is not really so "flashy".

 

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in comparison almost everything about windows classic can be changed in the GUI, including fonts, window border width and slider sizes. some colors are not accessible there but you can modify them in a text file directly. bliss.

 

 

Yep. Although to be sincere, its eons since I actually stopped configuring my desktop that much...Stopped specially when had to handle 3 or 4 different seats at the job, then another pair at home.. Each with its visuals... you get used to it, is a trade off, and in the end, I prefered to stop working in non essential stuff. That said, IMO, with the "minimalist" version of Aero, been since am testing this apps, and seriously, not really noticing... The standard one they give you with no modification, yeah.. I couldn't work like that...

 

when you look into changing the default aero style, you end up with pre-made non-official windows skins, some freely downloadable popular ones i caught containing viruses even

 

Oh, I just set the standard Windows main one, change the background for a solid grey color, and after setting off all what is not the 4 features these apps use, am done. No more config. I couldn't care less about themes and skins....

 

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(they just told me in another thread how to disable their check though)

 

 

Yep, but that's unsupported, and I'd expect any random collection of issues using a parameter that they quite not recommend... Is an app in which I wouldn't recommend this type of thing, actually...

 

I do 3D (practically all areas in 3D ), too, but also a lot of 2D. I instead have experience of having to modify quite more heavily my system in the past (with other companies/brands) to adapt to some software peculiarities... Maybe is just that am more used to make some concessions of that kind.

 

Anyway, is obviously a balance to make, of how much are you interested in this alternative, and if it is worth it for you. It is for me, but to each his own.