14 DAY TRIAL // Most people seem to prefer Windows XP over Vista, but, at the same time, yearn for Vista's cool interface and slick features like Aero Glass or Flip 3D. Fortunately, there are plenty of solutions on the market to emulate those effects on Windows XP as well, and, more importantly, without spending a dime. Simple software specially designed to bring the slickness of Vista on a lower OS started to appear shortly after the analysis of the elements required for creating that silky, glossy effects.
Some developers went even further and attempted to mimic through their software that live preview at hovering the mouse over windows minimized to taskbar or imported elements from Mac OS X, like windows tiling effect instead of Flip 3D. And the best part is that the applications are always so small and unobtrusive that most of the time you don't even know they're installed.
Shock Aero 3D from Shock is trying to do exactly that: run surreptitiously on your computer, so that it does not bother you, and clone the Flip 3D effect from Vista on XP. The application is absolutely free of charge and the installer comes wrapped up into 1.5MB, so there is no heavy lifting there. It installs in a jiffy and the process should not pose any problems, save for the fact that you may not have the appropriate font installed in order to read the license agreement.
The application basically brings the benefits and coolness of Vista's Flip 3D onto XP for a better visual experience in the old timer. However, before using the product you will have to register it first and receive the free key for unlocking it. The procedure is not at all complicated, and the generation of the key is instant, so there's no waiting involved.
Once started, Shock Aero 3D will quietly place itself in system tray and wait for your command. The same hot key for triggering the 3D effect is used as in Windows Vista, Win+Tab, but you can also define a custom key combination, but the default will not be eliminated.
Shock Aero 3D is more than cloning Flip 3D on XP and it makes available two additional effects, out of which one is inspired from Mac's Expose feature. Besides flipping, you can also view the windows on a grid or use Wave Flip, a pretty resource consuming effect which renders the images in a continuous waving appearance.
Regardless of the effect used, the focus on one window is marked by lighting it while all the other are applied a shade. Shifting the focus can be done by simply using keyboard arrows or the designated hotkeys. In the case of Grid effects, moving your mouse over the desired window will do the trick just fine.
Additional options in the program permit the user to change the camera position, thus viewing all windows from a different angle while flipping them. The alternatives to the default "Top" position of the camera are "Center" and "Bottom", which are also to be tried. Animation effects also contribute to the new enhanced visual experience on XP, providing the user the possibility of making the windows bounce or append reflections under each window. Enabling starting and ending animation effect will make the windows slide into position when hot key is accessed, as well as when the flip is over.
As small as it may seem, Shock Aero 3D comes with a pretty large number of options, another one of them being the defining of the background. There are several preset background styles which will squeeze more or less RAM out of your system, but you can also add your own image.
During our testing, the application responded quite well even on lower end systems with just 1.6GHz of CPU power and 512MB of RAM, although, when using a configuration requiring more computer resources, Shock Aero 3D did hiccup a bit and moved visibly slower. No need to say that on heftier computers with triple the RAM and double the CPU power it worked much better.
However, I have to say that the original Flip 3D in Vista is way better as there are practically no glitches. Shock Aero 3D attempts, and manages to some extent, to clone Vista's feature, but there are flaws and one of them is the fact that it cannot display video while in flip mode. Also, Shock Aero still has some issues with displaying the content of the windows whereas the original Flip 3D is perfectly capable of rendering video content and the entire content of the windows.
Shock Aero 3D is not the best choice for imitating Vista's Flip 3D on XP, but it manages to do a good job. The application works both on XP and on Vista where it annuls the original and puts itself at the helm. It comes with nice reflection and bounce effects, but I really felt the need of seeing the name of the window the focus was on.
The Good
The application runs smoothly even on lower end PCs and brings a set of effects for the user to play with, in order to make XP visual experience more pleasant.
Window flips background can be personalized with an image of your choice and you can shift camera position from Top to Center or Bottom.
The Bad
The application does not remember the path to the custom background image, so the result will be a black background.
From time to time, we experienced the popping of an error caused by the software. It would not crash the application but it takes a few clicks to make it disappear which is mighty uncomfortable (Wave Flip seems to cause the appearance of the error).
The Truth
It is not a full-fledged application and needs to brush up the rough edges. There are several aspects that need to be taken care of and the popping error screen is one of them. Adding a few more effects and making it remember the path to the custom background image would definitely increase its value.
Although it has its own share of advantages, the application is not one of the best in the segment and there are plenty of better solutions on the market you can use.
Here are some snapshots of the application in action:
