Enable both Aero and Glass in Vista Home Basic

Tips for people who are stuck up with Vista Home Basic OEM version.


Well i've read in most in most articles across the web to enable the Aero in Vista Home Basic.

1) Run "regedit"
2) Navigate to "Hkey_Current_User \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ DWM"
3) Change the value of the entry Composition to 1
4) Change the value of the entry CompositionPolicy to 0.
5) Now restart the computer.
6) Now go to Control Panel > Personalization > Window Color and Appearance.
7) When you are on Aero Standard you should now be able to see a color picker with sliders for choosing the colour of the Glass window decorations.

Well this only enables Aero in Vista Home Basic, not the 'Glass effect' like most people want. I tried to Google ways to get the 'Glass effect' but all give the same hack which never ends in the 'Glass Effect'.

You could always install WindowBlinds 6 ---> It's a shareware thing (not good idea imho).

But there is one free app available called Glass2k. Anyone interested in having 'Glass Effect' in their Vista Home Basic can download this free software from
here.

Microsoft: 88 Million Copies of Vista Shipped

Woah 88 million copies, should note that a majority of those copies were pre-installed OEM versions.

Despite underwhelming consumers and being snubbed by enterprises, Windows Vista's numbers keep growing, with Microsoft Corp. saying Thursday that it has now shipped 88 million copies of the operating system, almost double the number of copies of XP in the same amount of time at its launch.

In late July, Microsoft said it had hit the 60 million shipment mark with Vista.

Microsoft had previously said that it had shipped 20 million copies of Vista in its first month and 40 million copies of Vista in the first 100 days.

Microsoft credited Vista with helping it beat Wall Street expectations and raise financial projections for the rest of the year. The company reported revenue of US$13.76 billion for the first quarter ended Sept. 30, up 27 percent from the same quarter in 2006.

Revenue in its client segment, which includes all consumer versions of Windows, was $4.14 billion, edging out the $4.11 billion in revenue from the Microsoft Business Division where Office is produced.

CFO Chris Liddell credited strong sales in emerging markets, due in part to anti-piracy and legalization programs there.

Client revenues, however, did not top those of the first calendar quarter this year, when Vista was officially launched. Revenues at that time were $5.32 billion.

Three-quarters of the copies sold of Vista were higher-priced 'premium' versions, compared to 59 percent of the copies of Windows -- primarily XP -- available a year ago.

The 88 million figure mostly includes Vista-installed PCs bought by consumers and small businesses, as well as packaged copies of Vista sold in stores or online.

It does exclude the tens of millions of Windows corporate volume licenses. There, many enterprises continue to hold off on deploying Vista, acknowledged CFO Chris Liddell, though he expects them to start deploying it when Vista Service Pack 1's arrival in the first quarter of next year.

Nevertheless, revenue from companies renewing their volume licenses for Windows, which gives them the right to upgrade to Vista, was up 27 percent.

Source

Windows and Halo boost Microsoft

Microsoft has seen strong quarterly profits, thanks to demand for its Windows operating system and its popular Halo 3 video game.

The software giant saw net profit rise 23% to $4.29bn from $3.48bn a year earlier, during its first financial quarter, beating expectations.

Revenue added 27% to $13.76bn over the three months to 30 September.

The firm also raised its yearly forecast. Shares rose 11% in after-hours trade, to more than $35.

Morningstar analyst Toan Tran described the results as a "blowout quarter".

"I think Microsoft is going to have a fabulous second quarter. Worldwide PC demand is still very strong and is going to benefit Windows and Office," he added.

"With the holiday season, we're going to have demand for Xbox 360, and for Halo 3 so the second quarter is shaping up to be fabulous for Microsoft."

Outlook

Revenue from Microsoft's Windows Vista operating system grew 25% from a year earlier, hitting $4.14bn while sales climbed 20% to $4.11bn.

Meanwhile the firm's entertainment and devices arm saw revenue climb to $1.93bn - nearly double that seen in the first fiscal quarter of 2006, helped by the Halo 3 game as well as the Xbox consoles on which the game is played.

Looking ahead the firm raised its forecast for the financial year to $58.8bn in sales from a previous estimate of between $56.8bn and $57.8bn.

The results come the same day that Microsoft announced it had paid $240m (£117m) to buy a 1.6% stake in Facebook.

The deal means Microsoft will sell internet ads for Facebook outside the US.

Source

Samsung Cancels Blu-ray Player, Delays Dual-Mode Unit

Samsung confirmed Wednesday that it was canceling one of its Blu-ray players, while delaying its dual-format model until the end of the year.

The Blu-ray-only BD-P2400 was set to debut at a price point of $649 USD. However, the device was essentially the same as the $100 cheaper BD-P1400, save for the addition of HQV video processing.

In an increasingly muddied market for high-definition players where there appears to be no apparent winner for the foreseeable future, Samsung's move might not be all that surprising. It could be making this move to focus on getting its own dual-format player out, the BD-UP5000. While the player was originally supposed to be released in October, the company now says it will not be released until mid- to late December.

Another reason could be that Samsung wished to ensure its set-top box was BD Profile 1.1-compliant, which is a requirement of all players after October 31. While the unit will not ship with the new code, a firmware update in January will enable playback of discs that fit that profile.

Source

Nokia N95 8GB now shipping

Finnish fone fabricator Nokia has now begun shipping its updated N95 mobile phone.

The 8GB N95 boasts 8GB of built-in memory, a 5 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics, built-in A-GPS, WLAN, HSDPA and an innovative(?) 2-way slide. The N95 also features an all-important 2.8" (240 x 320) QVGA display that works great with GPS, Java games and Internet browsing.

The black, hot and heavy (129 g) N95 8GB is set to cost 560 euros without taxes.(WTF!)

Asus announces Silent Square EVO CPU cooler.

After the Silent Knight II, Asus has unveiled yet another cooler said to be perfect for keeping the temperatures of quad-core CPUs as low as possible. The Silent Square EVO works with Intel LGA 775 and AMD 939/940/AM2 sockets and features a "wave-shaped" double side fin design, a copper base and five copper heat pipes can efficiently transfer the heat to the fins.

The fan with which the Silent Square comes equipped is positioned inside the frame of the heatsink and measures 92×92×25mm. The fan spins its blades at 22dBA. The whole cooler and nothing but the cooler weights in 745 grams. A price tag for the new cooling solution has not been announced.

Eric Traut talks and demos Windows 7 and MinWin.

Microsoft’s distinguished engineer Eric Traut gave a presentation at the University of Illinois about Microsoft’s virtualisation technology and also mentioned Windows 7 - the next version of Windows after Vista. Believe it or not it was on video. Whilst the presentation is not directly about Windows 7, it does contain a demonstration of MinWin - an internal project to build the most efficient Windows kernel which will in turn be used in Windows 7.

The presentation (WMV) goes for approximately 1 hour and includes a very deep look into hyper visors. If you think Windows at its core is bloated, think again.

The 8 minute segment has been clipped out which Eric focuses on Windows 7 specifically to make it easier to watch.

Full WMV video (1 hour & 6 minutes)

Windows 7 Footage (8 minutes)