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What people think about it

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  • Radek Holý fanatic
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    I think, most people think that DWM is only new thing in Vista. It's nice but not necessary.

  • awallafashagba fanatic
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    Pretty but pointless.

  • Eyebee fanatic

    Not had any issues with it myself, and I run Photoshop too, but have multiple scratch disks and a fairly decent graphic card.

  • Hen Asraf expert

    @Gosay && @chaiguy1337: I have plenty of apps running in the back, I have DWM/Aero running, and I haven't really had memory problems. I have 2GB RAM & 2.02 GHz Centrino Duo processor. And of course without Aero my performance was up high, but it was ugly, and the performance isn't all that slow for me with Aero on.

  • gosay fanatic

    I agree, I do use some happy apps too, photoshop,music,FF with i dont know how many tabs it loads :D , most of it i would like keep system at as less stress as possible, hence i consider your advice. I priority is to have the efficiency rather fancy ;)

  • chaiguy1337 expert

    @Gosay: I know I'm happier without it; I run some heavy apps (Visual Studio, Photoshop, many browser tabs) so the saved RAM is very valuable to me. To anyone not running a lot of intensive apps it's probably not worth disabling, but I'm sure glad I did. :)

  • gosay fanatic

    @Chaiguy: I removed it :) after your comment!

  • chaiguy1337 expert
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    For anyone running Vista I would SERIOUSLY recommend trying running without DWM. It sucks HUGE amounts of memory because it keeps in-memory bitmaps of EVERY window you have open, in order to give you live thumbnails and a few other fancy effects.With DWM turned on I was getting low memory warnings every 20 minutes, and with 3 gigs of ram! I turned it off and haven't gotten a single warning since. Unfortunately that means going without Aero, but I decided it just wasn't worth it. Maybe when I get 6 gigs. :P

  • Samuel overlord
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    Waaaaay.

  • Thunar fanatic
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    Transferring responsibility for drawing the UI from the CPU to GPU is perhaps the greatest contribution of DWM, improving system performance noticeably.

    DWM is often compared to Compiz Fusion, which performs a similar function. While Compiz requires less resources, DWM is smoother, more stable, and has better scaling capability. I think if Microsoft were to provide an API for DWM, the windows community could create their own fancy eye-candy effects ;)

    I make good use of both the enhanced Alt+Tab and the new Win+Tab functionality DWM provides, given as I am averse to having to switch windows with mouse and taskbar.

  • SonicHedgehog devotee
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    Hmm, I also think that this shouldn't be tracked ...

  • ante_climax fanatic

    Very Show Offy but less practical than Alt Tab. When i boot Linux Compiz Fusion Pisses and pukes on this. Mickeysoft can do better, really

  • devil_may_laugh fanatic
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    Its an integral part of the Windows Aero experience in Home Premium and above. It takes advantage of full hardware acceleration on your graphic card to remove strain from your CPU by using the GPU instead (Graphics Processing Unit for N00bs).It is more of a toy than anything but it makes vista look more smooth and friendly.

  • mupet0000 overlord
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    The thing that makes vista look and feel different to XP.

  • ModusOperandi fanatic
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    A real improvement over GDI. The user interface is much more fluid without the tearing. The other features provided are awesome, too.