The animations in Vista are cool, but they often happen so quickly that you can't fully appreciate them. It turns out that there's a feature in Vista to slow them down: in the Run dialog, paste the following and press Enter:

reg add HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\DWM /v AnimationsShiftKey /t REG_DWORD /d 1

(If a command window asks if you really want to add this to the registry, type "Y"; you might also need to restart.) This will add a registry value that slows down animations while the SHIFT key is pressed. For example, press and hold the SHIFT while minimizing a window and you can watch it falling ever so slowly toward the taskbar. For example, here's a screenshot I took when I minimized Firefox with msn.com:

I saw this tip on Paul Thurrott's SuperSite for Windows; he got it from Edo Mangelaars. (There are lots of other great tips and information there too!)

Interesting animations to watch include minimizing a window, closing a window, Flip 3D, and restoring a window. As a fun bonus, after you've watched a few animations and you release the SHIFT button, your computer suddenly seems to go so fast!

By the way, it does get old after a while, especially when you want to go backwards in Flip 3D; to remove this, simply run the following:

reg delete HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\DWM /v AnimationsShiftKey

You will need to type "y" to remove, and then restart for the changes to take effect.