Flip 3D in Vista is a pleasing effect, but it has limited use because you can’t see the full contents of all available windows. There is a Mac OS X utility called Expose that enables you to pick between animated tiled windows that’s far more useful while retaining the wow factor that Aero fans love. Thankfully it’s been ported to Vista in the form of My Expose, which you can download from http://blogs.labo-dotnet.com/simon/archive/2006/11/08/11485.aspx. Follow the link to binaries. For the program to work, you’ll also need the Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 Redistributable Package installed on your system so go to http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=32BC1BEE-A3F9-4C13-9C99-220B62A191EE&displaylang=en and download it.
There are other limiting factors to consider. At the time of writing there’s no 64-bit version available. Your PC also needs to be comfortably capable of an Aero display to use My Expose. Just as Flip 3D doesn’t work in the Windows Vista Basic theme, nor does my Expose. You need a decent graphics capability for it to work.
If you’ve managed to tick the above boxes, it’s really as simple as installing the Visual C++ package, followed by running the My Expose installer. When you launch the program you’ll need to press the trigger key F9 to tile your windows. See the walkthrough to find out how to use and configure My Expose.
If you’re using an earlier version of Windows or don’t have the graphics capability to display Aero, try using SmallWindows. This gives a very similar effect to Expose for all versions of Windows after Windows 98. Get it from http://sourceforge.net/projects/smallwindows/ download and unzip the program and launch the executable. You can now tile your open windows by pressing the Windows key and F12 together or by moving the mouse to the top centre of the screen and clicking. You don’t get the shading effect that you see in My Expose, but otherwise the program works in a very similar way. You’ll need to remember to launch the executable file to ensure that it’s running in the background or drag a shortcut into your startup group if you want to make sure that it’s running all the time.
Expose Your Windows
Use My Expose to switch between open windows more easily than with Flip 3D
1
With My Expose installed and running, press the trigger key, which by default is F9. You’ll immediately see all open windows displayed in a tiled view, spread across the screen.
2
Move the mouse pointer over each window. As it is highlighted the window brightens and increases in size. Click it to select that window. It expands to fill the full screen using an attractive animation.
3
Right click the My Expose icon in the system tray and choose Configure. In the resulting window, you can select the triggers you want. Highlight Keyboard trigger and change the trigger key using the dropdown list.
