This little tip has been kicking around since Windows Vista Beta 1 and I just confirmed that it works on the RTM build (6000.16386). For those of you who don't know what this is, you can change a certain registry key and it will allow you to slow down the animation of windows (on minimize/maximize/close for instance) by holding down the SHIFT key while performing an action.
In order to enable this, you must edit the registry.
- Click on the Start button.
- In the "Start Search" field type "regedit". When it is displayed, either click on it or press Enter.
- If User Account Control prompts you for consent, click on Continue.
- Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\DWM
- In the right hand pane, right click on an empty space and from the context menu that appears choose "New > DWORD (32-bit) Value".
- Give the new DWORD (32-bit) Value a name of "AnimationsShiftKey" (without the quotes).
- Double click on the "AnimationsShiftKey" value and give it a value of 1.
- Close the Registry Editor.
- Log off of Windows and log back in for this to take effect.
Please note that in order for this to work you must be using Windows Aero.
One really cool way I've found to test this is to invoke Windows Flip3D by pressing CTRL+WinKey+Tab and then holding shift while clicking on a window. Pretty nifty.