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The Intel GMA 900 is a fairly old and low-end integrated graphics chipset. Intel has stated that it does not meet the requirements for Aero Glass, and thus have refused to released WDDM drivers for it. However, when pre-release versions of Vista allowed XP drivers to run Aero Glass, the GMA 900 ran Aero perfectly fine.
My question is this: will the RTM version of Windows 7 allow the GMA 900 to run Aero Glass? This is an incredibly important question to me because it is the chipset my laptop uses, and it would be entirely pointless to run Windows 7 without Aero (someone might argue otherwise, but a large number of new features are interface-based and require Aero Glass). Windows 7 is supposed to be optimized for netbooks but it would be completely pointless to put it on a netbook if half the major features are missing.
Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.
Answer accepted by question author
Just remember, Windows 7 is still in testing phase, and the answer is (they are working on it).
But, Windows update is always updating something (I have 10+ updates a day). They're getting around to it.
My recommendation is to wait until a definite answer is found.
Dear all,
After several evenings I have found a solution to get the mobile intel Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) 900 working under Windows 7 32-bit Home Premium.
Solution:
Now you are also able to use the VGA/PC output from you laptop again and duplicate or extend you monitor with another monitor/TV.
Have fun!
Best regards,
Ron van Nuland
Já vlastním oficiální plnou verzi Win 7 a ttaky potřebuji tento ovladač. Nejdou hry harry potter 3-7 fungují pouze 1 a 2 a to pouze v tom nejhorším rozlišení. Prostě hrůza. Dofám že jednou bude Intel pod takovým nátlakem že konečně vyhoví.
Michal Vašíček
Czech Republic
Europa
This isn't a problem that's going to be fixed through Windows Update. It's a situation that GMA 900 users have suffered through the entire lifetime of Vista, because they KNOW that their hardware can run Glass but Intel simply refuses to update the drivers. My question is whether or not Microsoft is aware of this situation, and whether they have changed the Aero driver standards at all to allow said chipset to run Glass. Again, it's not something that will be patched, or a simple feature that will be added post-RC1. They aren't working on it; it's either been fixed or it hasn't.
Well, obviously it's important to wait around on this site to see what one of the MSFT engineers says (if they ever respond) but...like Vista, Windows 7 will come out with several different versions. Windows 7 Starter or Basic is what is designed for the less powerful netbook computers but those versions don't even have Aero on them from all of the reading that I have done (unless Microsoft changes the release documentation again). Which would mean you're looking at running either Home Premium, Professional, or Ultimate on your machine and obviously Ultimate is the more expensive of the 3 releases and all 3 do include Aero. Since Intel refuses to create drivers for the chipset, the real question is if the pre-release drivers that you're running now will still be compatible with the RTM/final version of Windows 7. I know this doesn't really answer your question, it was more of a "keep up hope, but don't get your hopes up too high" type of reply. Hopefully an engineer can give you a more definative answer. Best of luck!
Jonathan Matthis aka "7tester" on MSN QnA
Chief Site Administrator
Windows 7 QnA
