Perhaps because I’m a designer, one of the things I like best about Windows 7 is the Aero interface inherited and improved from Windows Vista. If you’re not familiar with the term “Aero” in this context, it’s the name of the Windows theme that gives your windows translucent borders, that sort-of glassy interface. When you install Windows 7, so long as your computer is adequately powerful, the Aero interface presents itself. Personally, I think it looks much nicer than the Mac OS interface, but that’s just my opinion.

Aero offers another feature called Aero Peek that lets you see a thumbnail of your window contents when you hover your mouse pointer over its icon on the Taskbar (as shown in the illustration). But, what if Aero gets replaced by the more blasé Windows 7 Basic interface? In that case, your window borders become solid, your Taskbar loses its transparency, Aero Peek disappears, and you experience a variety of other disappointing interface losses. This is unavoidable if your PC is not up to the task, older PCs and less powerful ones, such as a typical netbook, can’t use the Aero interface.

To know if your PC can run the Aero interface, check the Windows Experience Index. You can find this by right-clicking the Computer option on your Start Menu and choosing Properties. You will see a Rating label in the System section of the Properties window. The rating is shown as a numerical value, and must be at least 3.0 or higher to support Aero. If your machine supports Aero, continue on to see how you can enable it.

I noticed one day last week that Aero was missing, and the Basic interface was being used instead. To fix it, I tried the following methods to reactivate it. One of these may work for you:

• Begin by right-clicking the desktop and choosing the Personalize option. Try just clicking on one of the Aero Themes. Although this didn’t work for me, it may be all you need to do.
• Type aero into the search box at the bottom of the Start Menu. A list of matching objects on your computer will appear above the search box. You may see an option under the Control Panel to “Find and fix problems with transparency and other visual effects.” If you do see it, choose this option to open the “Aero – Troubleshoot computer problems” wizard. Step through the wizard and, if it can, the wizard will correct the issue or tell you what’s wrong. In my case, it didn’t fix the issue but told me to disable programs that used a “mirror interface.” Hm? What’s that? And what programs use a “mirror interface?”

A “mirror interface” is a special display adapter that dumbs down the graphics for use by programs such as remote desktop software. Examples might include VNC, LogMeIn, Remote Desktop Connection, and others. I decided I could live without this display adapter for the time being to see if I could restore Aero. So, I tried this option:

• Type device manager into the search box at the bottom of the Start Menu and press the Enter key. Expand the Display adapters portion of the list in the Device Manager window. Look for any adapter that includes in its title, “Mirror Driver.” In my case, it was a LogMeIn Mirror Driver. Right click the offending option and choose Uninstall from the pop-up menu. When your finished doing this, reboot your computer. Aero should come back upon reboot, but if not, try the first bullet option above to re-invoke it.

LogMeIn may need its mirror driver back someday, but I’ve since tested it without the driver installed and LogMeIn still works (without reinstalling the mirror driver). So, I think I’ve won this battle. I’ll update this article if I encounter any additional issues with Aero.

Craig Samson