The problem is not that simple. The 915 was used in tens of millions
(perhaps hundreds of millions) of laptops, where there is no option to
get a new video card. Dell was still selling NEW laptops with 915 video
in DECEMBER 2006 (less than 60 days ago). Toshiba was manufacturing and
selling laptops with the 915 in the first half of 2006. The chip was
ubiquitous; it was probably used in most of the laptops made from
mid-2005 to early 2006. It's a HUGE quantity of very late model
machines, Centrino, Pentium-M and even some "Core" and "Core Duo" models.

The 915 is hardware capable of running Aero Glass. It meets all of the
hardware specs (Pixel Shader 2, 128MB of RAM, etc.). It was explicitly
identified by the Windows Vista Advisor that it WOULD run Aero Glass
(until they changed the Advisor in summer 2006). It DID run Aero Glass
in some of the very early beta versions of Vista. The only reason it
won't run Aero in the later versions (and RTM) is apparently because
Intel hasn't released a driver. But given the number of systems made
with the 915GM and how recently they were made, this is really inexcusable.

Also, I think your view of chipset video is dated. Intel GMA900 (which
is what we are talking about when we talk about the 915 chipset), GMA950
(the 945 chipset) and GMA3000 (the versions of the Core 2 Duo 965
chipset with onboard video) are ***NOT*** by any means "basic" video
systems. In fact they are quite powerful, although I'm not suggesting
that gamers would be happier with them than with a $300 to $500 discreet
video card.

Carey Frisch [MVP] wrote:
> Go out and purchase a good 256MB video card that is WDDM compliant
> and install it. Onboard video is just basic and consumes system resources
> that could be better utilized running applications.
>