When, oh when will we get true transparency? I don't see any purpose from a useability standpoint to the eye-candy transparency/blur of the titlebars, but it would be pretty handy to let me set the transparency for the whole window. How many times do you have to refer to content in one window while you are working in another, and have to stop and move the windows around to see the content you need? Especially with the command line prompt, it's handy to set it relatively transparent so I can see, say, a website behind it and follow along with some tidbit or advice...And make the "blur" adjustable as well, so if I want, I can get rid of it. This should be a per-window setting, not global, though global defaults should be adjustable as well.Kurt

Not native, I do agree with you, however, but you can do what you are looking to do with http://www.stardock.com/products/objectdock/.

I suppose this IS a bit like... hm... well, like taking care of certain needs on someone else's turf, but later versions of Ubuntu (Linux) can do that. IF, that is, you manage to get Compiz running.*Crawling back under my rock*

When Compiz is running, it is the greatest thing going. For all of the 3D flip, Aero snap and such, if Windows could provide native virtual desktop functionality along with Compiz like compositing, then MS would have a real winner on its handsproviding that stability and performance is not decreased as a consequential result.

Compiz certainly has a lot of eye-candy, but I only find some of it actually useful! The rest is just pretty. But that kind of makes my point -- the "aero transparency" is purely pretty -- not usefull at all. All windows should have a user adjustable transparency setting. Since Aero relies on 3d hardware for full functionality, I don't see why MS doesn't tap a little emore of the power available in the 3D cards now available.Another feature that would be really handy would be a HW accelerated window-shrink; rather than simply adjusting the borders, the window content would shrink. Currently, I am forever adjusting fonts and such to get content to fit in a web page or console at a size that lets me keep the window out of the way of other windows. If I could just "shift-click/drag" a window border to srink the window+comtents rather than just the borders, I think I'd experience a feeeling not entirely uinlike happiness.

Yes, I agree that having only title bars tranparent is pretty pointless - just as pointless as the blur behind it.Having full window transparency is very practical indeed. That's why I'm using a tiny freeware app (just 55kB) named "Glass2k" which does just that - it gives you customisable transparency from 10% to 90% for every application individually:http://www.softpedia.com/get/Desktop-Enhancements/Other-Desktop-Enhancements/Glass2k.shtmlI've already used it in XP, and now I tried it in Windows 7 x64, and it works fine here as well.It only worked poorly on Vista, which was just yet another reason to skip it.It would be very nice if MS would include that in the upcoming RC, or at least in the final. They already have customisable transparency for gadgets (if only very roughly in 20% steps), so making avaiable for every window (in 10% steps) really shouldn't be difficult at all.

Hi KurtIf I remember correctly, during the Windows Vista technical beta, there was a lot of discussion about the Aero Transparency settings and the general consensus was that it would be too distracting to be useful. Even most of the eye candy aficianados agreed.I think this was also the reason that it was restricted to just the Title Bar.Like Darien mentioned, there are third party solutions for this effect, if it is important to you.Hope this helps.Thank You for testing Windows 7 Beta Ronnie Vernon MVP

Ronnie,I'm always a bit leery of those kinds of third party apps, especially when they are hooking into always on, vital, low-level system guts, live the display! But I think you'll agree restricting it to the title bar makes it simply eye-candy, and of no real value.I don't agree that incorporating transparency functionality would be distracting to the average user, since the average user would probably never turn it on -- but it certainly should be an adjustable feature. The default would, and should be no transparency, but I should be able to set certain apps to be transparent.I do think that, done right, transparency would be a very nice enhancement!Thanks!Kurt