HELP! enalbing aero with ati x850

I've tried almost everything at this point and yet i can't enable aero, first
here's my specs:

ati X850 PE
AMD athlon 64 3400+
2.00 Gig's of ram
50 gigs of free hard disk space (2 other hard-drives totalling in 400 gigs)
windows vista beta 2 5384

Alright i installed the beta last night, activated it first thing. Installed
the new catalyst drivers from ATI for my GPU. Updated all my other drivers
(sound, wifi, etc.)

Ran the performance test. scored a 3 (it also states that i have an unkown
graphics card) but, i still can't enable aero. In fact not only can i not
enable it, but i don't have the option. It just doesn't exist, i can only
choose vista basic, there's no other options (except older windows choices,
classic etc.) and this is driving me nuts. Also it doesn't even list that i
have a video adapter, some games don't play correctly and it gives me an
error at their start, stating that i don't have a direct 3d card enabled, or
something equally annoying. I've searched everywhere i can and i'm still
pullin my hair out. Oh and i really don't want to use the downloadable aero
theme either.

-please help i've already waisted 24 hours and i still really want to see
aero in action.

I would extract the contents of the executable to a folder, open Device
Manager and update the driver with .inf file and see if that works.

If that does not work, you just have contact ATI about issue and file a
driver report in the mean time.
For Feedback:
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=55160

Feedback reporting tool:
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Andre
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"Darksquirrel" <Darksquirrel@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:30C68232-532B-414A-A62C-BE13207C2338@microsoft.com...

> I've tried almost everything at this point and yet i can't enable aero,
> first
> here's my specs:
>
> ati X850 PE
> AMD athlon 64 3400+
> 2.00 Gig's of ram
> 50 gigs of free hard disk space (2 other hard-drives totalling in 400
> gigs)
> windows vista beta 2 5384
>
> Alright i installed the beta last night, activated it first thing.
> Installed
> the new catalyst drivers from ATI for my GPU. Updated all my other drivers
> (sound, wifi, etc.)
>
> Ran the performance test. scored a 3 (it also states that i have an unkown
> graphics card) but, i still can't enable aero. In fact not only can i not
> enable it, but i don't have the option. It just doesn't exist, i can only
> choose vista basic, there's no other options (except older windows
> choices,
> classic etc.) and this is driving me nuts. Also it doesn't even list that
> i
> have a video adapter, some games don't play correctly and it gives me an
> error at their start, stating that i don't have a direct 3d card enabled,
> or
> something equally annoying. I've searched everywhere i can and i'm still
> pullin my hair out. Oh and i really don't want to use the downloadable
> aero
> theme either.
>
> -please help i've already waisted 24 hours and i still really want to see
> aero in action.
>
>
>

Darksquirrel wrote:

> I've tried almost everything at this point and yet i can't enable aero, first
> here's my specs:
>
> ati X850 PE
> AMD athlon 64 3400+
> 2.00 Gig's of ram
> 50 gigs of free hard disk space (2 other hard-drives totalling in 400 gigs)
> windows vista beta 2 5384
>
> Alright i installed the beta last night, activated it first thing. Installed
> the new catalyst drivers from ATI for my GPU. Updated all my other drivers
> (sound, wifi, etc.)
>
> Ran the performance test. scored a 3 (it also states that i have an unkown
> graphics card) but, i still can't enable aero. In fact not only can i not
> enable it, but i don't have the option. It just doesn't exist, i can only
> choose vista basic, there's no other options (except older windows choices,
> classic etc.) and this is driving me nuts. Also it doesn't even list that i
> have a video adapter, some games don't play correctly and it gives me an
> error at their start, stating that i don't have a direct 3d card enabled, or
> something equally annoying. I've searched everywhere i can and i'm still
> pullin my hair out. Oh and i really don't want to use the downloadable aero
> theme either.
>
> -please help i've already waisted 24 hours and i still really want to see
> aero in action.

Strange, indeed. I have a rig very similar to yours -- Athlon-64 3500+
and ATI X800XL. It installed and ran Aero beautifully WITHOUT
installing the beta Vista Catalyst from ATI. The MS driver works so
well that I hesitate to install the ATI driver for fear of messing it
up. Can you just roll back the display driver to the one Vista Setup
installed to see if that helps?

By the way, Aero ain't much -- some shiny buttons, some animation in
places where it didn't used to be, and some transparency. You aren't
missing anything very important.

Ron