Windows Vista Ultimate Not running Aero on brand new MB pro

[Spyinsky]

Hi,

I am new to this forum,so apologies in advance of some of you have covered this topic.

I have just bought a brand new Mac Book Pro (10 days old, so its the new config). The mac is entry level, so has Nvidea 8600m GT 128mb Graphics card, 2 Gig RAM.

I cannot get Vista 'Aero' to run on my Mac, I am pretty sure that I have minimum requirements to run it, however when I try and look at all the settings in Windows, I cannot see the 'aero' theme in the dialog boxes of the display settings.

I have tried all the recommendations listed in Vista Support, but am unable to see any settings related to aero wthin the color, display, or transparancy.

Within the device manager, the graphics setting tells me I only have 14mb available to the graphics device, which I cannot understand, or am unable to change.

Technically, the machine should run aero, I have tried almost everything.
Could it be something to do with the new MB pro not supporting Bootcamp/Vista Aero
a friend is running the same config and has had no problem.

Is there anything outside of this that could cause this issue?

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Spy.

 

[killmoms]

You probably don't have graphics drivers installed. The new MacBook Pros have a new graphics chipset from NVIDIA, and as far as I'm aware Boot Camp hasn't been updated to include drivers for it yet. You'll need to go get drivers from NVIDIA's website. Then you should be good to go.

 

[mkrishnan]

Ouch, that's frustrating!

How did you install drivers? Did you use Bootcamp, or... Have you checked in the control panel to make sure that your video card is actually being recognized as what it is and not as some generic? Have you tried getting the latest Vista drivers for your vid card?

 

[Spyinsky]

Currently, I have just tried the standard bootcamp download, install Vista and hoped it would all work.

Do you mean the control panel in vista?

Spy

 

[Chundles]

Currently, I have just tried the standard bootcamp download, install Vista and hoped it would all work.

Do you mean the control panel in vista?

Spy

You need to install the drivers off the CD you burnt during the Boot Camp install. It was recently updated to version 1.3 which included support for the new MBP graphics card.

 

[Spyinsky]

Sorry,

do I need to dowmload the latest drivers from Nvidia, into the Mac OSX side , or into Windows Vista Side?

(I am a bit of a novice, so apologies for the basic questions)

Spy.

 

[Chundles]

Sorry,

do I need to dowmload the latest drivers from Nvidia, into the Mac OSX side , or into Windows Vista Side?

(I am a bit of a novice, so apologies for the basic questions)

Spy.

You use the driver CD you burnt during the Boot Camp install to install the graphics drivers into Windows. You don't need to download any drivers as they come with Boot Camp and you burnt them to a CD.

 

[Spyinsky]

Hey Chundles,

should have mentioned that I have re-installed vista, and the bootcamp drivers twice, but still have had no joy.

spy

 

[mkrishnan]

should have mentioned that I have re-installed vista, and the bootcamp drivers twice, but still have had no joy.

Look in Vista's control panel, at the list of hardware devices. What is the video card listed as? Is it listed as an 8600m or not?

 

[Luigi239]

You may need to update your Windows Vista Experience rating, because you updated the drivers.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/933478

Look there for more information, do the steps, and then look to see if there is an Aero option.

 

[Spyinsky]

Like a completey frustrated idiot, I got a bit angry and removed the windows partition to give it one more go.

I am going to re-install now, and will post back the answer to the driver question. But I am prettry sure I did not see the '8600' Listed in the device manager. I think it was something like 'VGA device' but i will confirm in about 30 min.

Please keep the suggestions flying in - while I re-install...

thanks guys.

Spy.

 

[mkrishnan]

Spy, if you didn't see the 8600, and you say something like "VGA Device," then your problem is almost certainly that you don't have proper graphics drivers. If nothing else works, just navigate to Nvidia's site using a browser in Vista, download the Vista drivers for the card, and install them inside Vista. You should already have a copy on your Bootcamp disc, but there's no harm in getting them from Nvidia, as far as I know.

You may need to update your Windows Vista Experience rating, because you updated the drivers.

I was really, really expecting this to be a joke. I'm mortified to realize it's serious.

 

[Spyinsky]

I previously got a experience rating, I was rated at 1.0. This baffled me due to the spec of the machine, given also that I have not installed anything at all on the machine. It is completely out of the box.

Spy.

Ps, i will follow that link....to update the experience rating...

 

[psycho bob]

woah there!!

I'm have the same machine as you, once you install the bootcamp 1.3 drivers you have ONE MORE step. You actually have to turn aero on! It is off by default.

If you go to control panel > personalise and look under themes you can select Aero from there.

It will all work fine then. I cannot get the Vista performance test to run keeps saying I'm on battery power, fortunately it is a load of bull (not unlike Vista at the mo) and tells you nothing.

Hope that helps

 

[lag1090]

You may need to update your Windows Vista Experience rating, because you updated the drivers.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/933478

Look there for more information, do the steps, and then look to see if there is an Aero option.

Funny thing is, I cannot even run the test for the Experience rating, as it apparently thinks my MBP is on battery power when it's not.

Really, the Experience rating doesn't do anything. If Vista detects that you have an Aero-capable video card (separate, automatic test from the Experience rating), it will allow Aero to be selected in the display preferences.

 

[Eraserhead]

OK once you have booted Vista, you'll need to get the latest Nvidia drivers for your graphics card, go here, (or to nvidia.com and follow the links) and download the drivers, the bootcamp thing is just to get you setup the Nvidia drivers from their site should work perfectly.

 

[ravenvii]

Jeez, this made me happy I stayed with XP for now.

I mean, experience rating? That's one of the most retarded thing I've ever heard.

 

[Spyinsky]

Thank You

After 2 weeks of pain and suffering I have finally mamanged to crack the problem. It appears to be a issue with the Bootcamp Drivers, not installing the NVIDIA drivers.

Having gone to the NVIDIA site, I installed the drivers, booted and seems to work ok. I was aware of turning aero on previously, just did not give the option...

Anyway, I'd like to thank al of you that have contributed to this post. No doubt, I will 100% use this forum again, even if it is just to say hello.

Cheers guys.

spk soon

Spy.

 

[nateDEEZY]

woah there!!

I'm have the same machine as you, once you install the bootcamp 1.3 drivers you have ONE MORE step. You actually have to turn aero on! It is off by default.

If you go to control panel > personalise and look under themes you can select Aero from there.

It will all work fine then. I cannot get the Vista performance test to run keeps saying I'm on battery power, fortunately it is a load of bull (not unlike Vista at the mo) and tells you nothing.

Hope that helps

Under the problems section (or whatever) there seems to be a problem with the power management, all I did was unplug the MBP then replug it then it detected the power was plugged in. But unfortunately I can't get the windows index to give me any info even after several attempts of running it.

 

[markbrads]

Did you get the adaptor to work ?

Under the problems section (or whatever) there seems to be a problem with the power management, all I did was unplug the MBP then replug it then it detected the power was plugged in. But unfortunately I can't get the windows index to give me any info even after several attempts of running it.

Hello,

Did you get the adaptor to work, I have the same issue, plugged to the mains but Vista thinks its on batteries until I unplug and replug, Vista mentions an ACPI problem in the problem reports and solutions.

Is this problem with all MacBook Pro's or just the latest models.

Thanks