How in the Tech

Give Windows 7 Aero Shake it’s Last Shake

By Adam Myers ⋅ June 3, 2009 ⋅ Tags: Customization, Windows 7

The Aero experience received a spit and polish for the upcoming Windows 7 release compared to the version we have in Vista currently. One of the new features has been dubbed Aero Shake by Microsoft’s marketing department and I must admit, I don’t really see the value it provides nor is the novelty very compelling. If you are not aware, Aero Shake is initiated by grabbing an applications titlebar and shaking the window left to right. When the motion has been repeated sufficiently, every background window will minimize to the taskbar, leaving you with just the active window that you were shaking visible. If you want to free yourself of background distractions on your  computer so that you can concentrate on one sole application or task, this is a quick way to accomplish that. I think this process is highly specific to an individual though and does not apply to my typical workflow. Having accidentally triggered the Aero Shake action on a few occasions I sought out a way to disable the functionality.

1. Open the Registry Editor regedit.exe through the Start Menu search or run box.
2. Navigate down to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows. From here, right click on the Windows key and create a new key called Explorer.



3. With the Explorer key selected create a new 32-bit DWORD by right clicking in the right hand box. Give the DWORD a name of NoWindowMinimizingShortcuts and a value of 1.



4. Lastly, cycle your Windows 7 logon session to apply the change.