Windows 7 Aero Snap and Shake now in Vista

As we wait for anxiously for Windows Vista 2.0…er…I mean Windows 7, there are a couple of Windows 7 features that are now available in Vista and XP

The first feature is called Aero Snap and can be downloaded here. Once Aero Snap is running you can drag a window to the left or right side of the screen (drag until your cursor is stopped at the side of the screen) and release the mouse button. The window will resize to take up 50% of the screen. If you drag the window to the top of the screen and release the mouse button the window will maximize. Dragging the window away from the top or sides will resize the window back to the original size. Once I realized that the mouse cursor had to stop at the side or top of the screen before Aero Snap would change the window size the program worked flawlessly.

The second feature is called Aero Shake and can be downloaded here. This application is pretty straightforward. When you shake the active window with you mouse, all the other windows will minimize. Shaking the active window again with your mouse will restore the previously minimized windows. In my testing on a Dell XPS laptop running Vista Ultimate I had to give the active window a pretty strong shake with my mouse before the other windows would minimize or restore.