Enable Slow-Motion Aero Effects in Windows Vista

Enabling a "Slow Motion" Window Animation in Windows

While not particularly practical, a curious technique exists to demonstrate a "Slow Motion" animation within Windows. This effect is triggered by holding down the Shift key during window operations like minimizing, restoring, closing, or opening.

It’s important to understand that this modification requires the Windows Aero glass theme to be active for functionality. Without Aero enabled, the animation will not be visible.

Activating the Hack

Initially, a registry file must be downloaded and extracted. Double-clicking this file will integrate new values into the Windows Registry.

Following the registry modification, a system reboot is necessary to observe the changes. Alternatively, a restart of the Desktop Window Manager can be performed without a full reboot.

To restart the Desktop Window Manager, open an administrator mode command prompt. This can be achieved by typing 'cmd' into the Start menu search box and then pressing Ctrl+Shift+Enter.

Within the command prompt, execute the following commands sequentially:

net stop uxsms
net start uxsms

After executing these commands, the slow motion animations will become active when the Shift key is held during window manipulation.

Limitations and Future Updates

Currently, there is no built-in method to adjust the speed of the animation. The effect operates at a fixed rate.

Visual documentation, such as a picture or video demonstration, is planned for a future update to this article. The necessary equipment to create such content is currently being prepared.

This feature serves primarily as an interesting demonstration of Windows customization rather than a functional enhancement.