It has been almost three years since Windows 11 was first publicly announced. The upcoming version of the OS, 24H2, is soon going to hit RTM per reports. Windows 11 gains its aesthetic signature from design elements comprising Acrylic, Mica, Mica Alt, and Smoke.
Notably missing from this list is Aero, something which most Windows fans and enthusiasts have generally loved. But Microsoft did not drop Aero with Windows 11, that happened with Windows 8, which succeeded Windows 7. Some of the Aero-like transparency effects lived on and they were present in more abundance on Windows 10.
In case you are wondering, Microsoft introduced Aero Glass material with Windows Vista, and it was difficult for graphics cards of that time to process, despite Microsoft claiming otherwise. Due to the intensive nature of Aero, in many instances, certain GPU-heavy applications forced Windows to disable Aero as the effect was using too many GPU cycles to hardware-accelerate the latter.
Keeping this in mind, Microsoft was having to make improvements to the Windows Display Driver Model (WDDM) GPU scheduler to enable faster GUI processing so as to keep up with Aero"s performance demands. There were also reports that Windows 8 would allow software-accelerating Aero.
With some of that hardware backstory out of the way, one must wonder what if Microsoft had brought Aero back with Windows 11, as most of the GPUs today, both dedicated as well as integrated, are far more capable.
Reddit user sakuhanaX3 has designed a concept showing Windows 11 with Aero effects enabled and published it on the FrutigerAero subreddit. The user imagines that Microsoft had never dropped Aero and kept improving it. In the image (above), the Aero glass effect itself looks quite good though one may or may not like the ancient icons it surrounds.
Do you think Microsoft will ever bring Aero back? If not with future Windows 11 versions then perhaps with the next-gen Windows (12)? Let us know what you want to see in the comments below.