Datasheet

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CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCING WINDOWS VISTA
improve user productivity in much the same way that other environmental considerations do.
Productivity is one of the reasons why companies have plants in the office area (even areas that a
client won’t visit) or paint offices in bright colors, rather than maintain a factory atmosphere. Sure,
the factory atmosphere is significantly easier to maintain and dirt cheap to install, but users don’t
work well in such an environment. For a business user, the added user productivity is about the
only thing to recommend the Aero Glass UI, except that it looks great, as shown in Figure 1.1.
The see-through title bar, brilliant colors, and graphical effects that the Aero Glass UI provides
really do dazzle the eyes. In some cases, such as working with Photo Gallery, the additional graph-
ics are also helpful, but not required. Most business users can do just fine using the non-glass UI
discussed in the next section.
Figure 1.1
The Aero Glass UI
looks nice, but
requires a lot of
hardware to run.
Non-Glass UI
Most business users will find early on that the Aero Glass UI is pretty, but not necessary. If you
want to get work done quickly and with fewer resources, you really need a no-frills interface. Vista
also includes a Windows Classic theme. This theme still provides most of the gizmos of the Aero
Glass UI, but without the expense of the transparent effects. Figure 1.2 shows a comparison of the
Windows Classic theme to the Aero Glass UI shown in Figure 1.1.
As you can see, the Windows Classic theme looks a lot like Windows 2000 with some Windows
XP mixed in for good measure. However, it still includes something called the compositor, a spe-
cial Vista feature that makes creating graphics faster and easier. The amount of memory that Vista
uses is reduced considerably when you use the Windows Classic theme and you’ll notice the CPU
usage is also considerably less. The thing that surprised me is that the cabinet temperature of my sys-
tem actually went down because the graphics processor wasn’t working so hard. However, you can
still do better by turning off the compositor and other unnecessary graphic effects, something you'll
find discussed in the “Configuring the Windows Classic Interface” section of Chapter 4.
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