Appearance and Personalization not working

Currently, I am encountering problems with Windows Personalization settings.
Out of the 7 available settings in the window, only "Window Color and
Appearance" and "Desktop Background" are working. When I click on the other
5 settings - "Screen Saver", "Sounds", "Mouse Pointers", "Theme" or "Display
Settings", nothing happens! The "Change desktop icons" function on the left
column is also not working.
I installed Vista SP1 on Mar 25. I am also up to date on the latest
Important/Critical security patches. I can't confirm if SP1 was the cause
(since I don't tinker with the Personalization settings very often) but I
suspect it may have something to do with it.
Apart from the above issues, Vista seems to be working fine; in fact, things
appear to be a little quicker after SP1. Still it's a little troubling not
being able to access the above features. I wonder if anyone else has
experienced similar problems, and how they resolved them.

I would guess that your Theme service is not running. See if it is set to
'automatic' in services.msc.

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Mark L. Ferguson
..

"Chua" <Chua@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:15087104-D420-4489-9D02-8AA1F8CBEBD1@microsoft.com...
> Currently, I am encountering problems with Windows Personalization
> settings.
> Out of the 7 available settings in the window, only "Window Color and
> Appearance" and "Desktop Background" are working. When I click on the
> other
> 5 settings - "Screen Saver", "Sounds", "Mouse Pointers", "Theme" or
> "Display
> Settings", nothing happens! The "Change desktop icons" function on the
> left
> column is also not working.
> I installed Vista SP1 on Mar 25. I am also up to date on the latest
> Important/Critical security patches. I can't confirm if SP1 was the cause
> (since I don't tinker with the Personalization settings very often) but I
> suspect it may have something to do with it.
> Apart from the above issues, Vista seems to be working fine; in fact,
> things
> appear to be a little quicker after SP1. Still it's a little troubling not
> being able to access the above features. I wonder if anyone else has
> experienced similar problems, and how they resolved them.

I've just checked my Themes service. It is on Automatic and its status is
reported as Started. So I don't think that was the cause. Thanks anyway.

"Mark L. Ferguson" wrote:

> I would guess that your Theme service is not running. See if it is set to
> 'automatic' in services.msc.
>
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> Was this helpful? Then click the Ratings button. Voting helps the web
> interface.
> http://www.microsoft.com/wn3/locale...teAPostAsAnswer
> Mark L. Ferguson
> .