The Windows Vista Aero 'user experience' is available from the following four of the five editions of the Microsoft Windows Vista operating system: 

•  Windows Vista Enterprise
•  Windows Vista Business
•  Windows Vista Ultimate
•  Windows Vista Home Premium
  

Windows Vista Aero is not offered by the Windows Vista Home Basic edition, which offers only the simpler Windows Vista Basic user experience.

To find out which edition of Windows Vista is installed on your computer, click the Windows Vista Start button, and then click Welcome Center. The Windows Vista edition name will be displayed near the top of the window.

Microsoft recommends the following minimum hardware to run Windows Vista Aero:

 • 1 GHz 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor

 • 1 GB (1 gigabyte) of memory

 •  graphics processor with minimum of 128 MB graphics memory, which supports DirectX 9, with a Windows Display Driver Model driver, Pixel Shader 2.0 in hardware, and 32 bits per pixel

For best results, follow these graphics memory recommendations:

 • 64 MB of graphics memory to support a single monitor with a resolution that is less than 1,310,720 pixels (for example, a 17–inch flat panel LCD monitor that has a 1280 × 1024 resolution)
 
 • 128 MB of graphics memory to support a single monitor with a resolution from 1,310,720 to 2,304,000 pixels (for example, a 21.1–inch flat panel LCD monitor that has up to a 1600 × 1200 resolution)
 
 • 256 MB of graphics memory to support a single monitor with a resolution greater than 2,304,000 pixels (for example, a 30–inch wide-screen flat panel LCD monitor that has up to a 2560 × 1600 resolution)

For additional information, see Microsoft's How do I get Windows Aero? page, and also Microsoft's Vista Capable and Premium Ready PCs page.

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