Aero is the default.
Vista was never as bad as so many idiots proclaimed as loudly as they could. I used Vista in public beta 6 months before it was released and you could already see the tidal wave of animosity from the legions of morons who were hell bent on hating it.
It had it's problems. Mostly compatibility issues with some older hardware which was made worse by companies not updating their own drivers despite being given tons of time by MS to do so.
Nvidia took 6+ months after launch of Vista to finally get around to releasing WHQL certified graphics drivers.
That was not Microsoft's fault but it hurt them because everyone blamed Vista and that was generally the story for months until it because super cool tgo hate on Vista even if you hadn't used it. Suddenly XP became the best thing since sliced bread as well which was even more proposterus.
Anyway, get with the times. Run Windows 7. It's tthe best yet.