AeroXperience (also called AeroXP or AXP) is a forum that was primarily created to facilitate discussion of the upcoming Microsoft Windows Vista Operating System. Calling itself a <nowiki>"Windows Vista Resource Community"</nowiki>, it was founded on May 7th, 2004 by Victor Mach. To date, it has 4000 members, 41000 posts, a IRC channel, and 81 Gadgets for the Windows Sidebar. AeroXperience is also known for hosting the Windows Vista build 5219, build 5308, and build 5342 Windows Sidebar patches to run the application on Windows XP, as well as discovering many secrets in Microsoft's Windows Codename "Longhorn". In time, the forum and its community have grown and endured various changes, all the while continuing to function with an abundance of discussion.

History

first started out from the domain <nowiki>"aeroxp.ath.cx"</nowiki>. The forums were the only part of the site available then. Before v1 of the site appeared, the website ran under the Invision Power Board default 'blue', with a modified header. A few months after however, v1 of the site appeared. However, the site had a slight name change, with the <nowiki>"p" in "xperience" also capitalized. The skin was black</nowiki>.

Version 2 appeared on October 2004 after 3 weeks of offline time. However, as the site owner said, the only changes were the skin. The sudden offline time was explained by hosting problems. There were "security updates" that were posted occasionally, alerting users about new flaws in Microsoft products, but this was discontinued later on. The announcements were also broader, focusing on main technology news and main software releases relating to Vista.
On April 13, 2006, an administrator posted an announcement about a domain name change, from <nowiki>"aeroxp.net" to "aeroxp.org"</nowiki>. Much speculation from the community arose, but on May 30, 2006, the explanation that the founder gave to the staff was posted to the public.

Structure of Website

The site has fifteen main forums and sixteen subforums. Four main forums are for discussion of Windows Vista, three main forums are for customizing Vista, three main forums are for beta discussions, and three other main forums are for other discussions. One of the most visited forums is the Windows Sidebar forum, in which the wide library of gadgets is located.
A guest who visits sees a red bar that shows telling the guest to either log in or register. Once logged in, the red bar disappears and is replaced by a blue bar which is where the user sorts out personal messages, uses the assistant, and access the control panel. The control panel is where the user can view the recent attachments they posted, recent posts they have read, their account summary, and their own personal notepad. On the left, there are more options for user user to choose, including changing their profile, avatar, and signature.

Subforums

The Sidebar Forum has nine subforums in all: one for general discussions, five for gadgets from Sidebar 5219-5384, and one for each of development and programming of sidebar gadgets, work in progress gadgets, and requests for gadgets.

The News & Announcements forum has a subforum for coverage of WinHEC 2006 as covered by newsposter gcnaddict.

The Aero Lounge, where members post off-topic things, has a subforum called the Ballot Box, where members post polls on which others can vote.

The Windows XP/2003 forum has a subforum for customization of the two operating systems.

The Site/Forum Discussion Forum has three subforums in all, one for site issue tracking, one for the AeroXP IRC (where the scheduled times for chats are posted), and the mysterious protected subforum <nowiki>"4"</nowiki>.

Vista Sidebar & Gadget Development

In addition to possibly unofficially carrying the blessing of Microsoft, AeroXperience has become a well known resource for the Windows Vista Sidebar due to the fact that the website plays host to, arguably, the largest library of Windows Sidebar gadgets; developed by both Microsoft and members of the community. Unlike other resources, AeroXperience categorizes gadget releases for each of the different builds of the Sidebar. If you're looking for a compatible gadget then all you need to do is to open the relevant sub forum and browse through the library.

The community is bustling with active developers for the Sidebar and it's a great place to go if you too are considering a gadget release.

The site has also gained a reputation with this saying- "If you can't find it on AeroXP, you can't find it anywhere else" [1800]

AeroWiki

AeroXperience Wiki, (or AeroWiki as it's also known) is the Windows Vista wiki from
AeroXperience. The Mission Statement is as follows- <nowiki>"Our aim is to offer the internet's most detailed and accurate Windows Vista resource, written entirely by the many communities across the globe."</nowiki>

See also

Windows Vista

Windows Sidebar

iPB

External links

AeroXperience

AeroXperience Wiki