Bluish-grey color scheme?

[Wholesomeflame.]

So... I had my nice sleek black color scheme for aero... I'm happy with it,
but one mornign I turn it on and now it's the blueish gray... It'd been fine
for these past four months i've had it but not it just decided to change on
me? I don't understand.

Let me summarize. I have a black task bar, where all my programs are
displayed, but every program that pops up has a bluish grey trim... I don't
get it. And when I go to personalize > windows color and appearance. I don't
have the normal palette for colors, I have the theme chooser like they did
for XP, is that for everyone?

 

[Hiren]

If hovering over items in your Start menu causes a sky-blue highlight,then
this probably means that the Windows Aero color scheme has been turned
off.Using the same dialog box which you get to choose the theme,turn it back
on.

message So... I had my nice sleek black color scheme for aero... I'm happy with it,
but one mornign I turn it on and now it's the blueish gray... It'd been fine
for these past four months i've had it but not it just decided to change on
me? I don't understand.

Let me summarize. I have a black task bar, where all my programs are
displayed, but every program that pops up has a bluish grey trim... I don't
get it. And when I go to personalize > windows color and appearance. I
don't
have the normal palette for colors, I have the theme chooser like they did
for XP, is that for everyone?

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

In addition to Hiren's advice, you may now be running a program that is not
Aero friendly. If so Aero has turned itsef off. Exiting the program
restores Aero. If you can't get Aero to re-enable in settings the quick way
to check this out and track down the culprit is to boot into Clean Boot mode
so that only Microsoft programs and services are running. You should then
have Aero back. You would then progressively re-enable third party software
until you find a program that turns off Aero when you start it. I use one
website for sports events (streaming video) that turns off Aero. When I
leave the website Aero returns.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/331796

 

[Nonny]

In addition to Hiren's advice, you may now be running a program that is not
Aero friendly. If so Aero has turned itsef off. Exiting the program
restores Aero. If you can't get Aero to re-enable in settings the quick way
to check this out and track down the culprit is to boot into Clean Boot mode
so that only Microsoft programs and services are running. You should then
have Aero back. You would then progressively re-enable third party software
until you find a program that turns off Aero when you start it. I use one
website for sports events (streaming video) that turns off Aero. When I
leave the website Aero returns.

I am really REALLY glad that I only bought Home Basic. REALLY.

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

It happens seldomly. Some third-party stuff tries to use DirectX in a way
that would cause a very ugly display with Aero enabled so MS decided it was
better to have Aero turn itself off than have the user have a bad
experience. A pretty obvious choice.

 

[Wholesomeflame.]

That's all good and well, I troubleshooted, clean booted, and everything. But
whenever I lock my computer with Vista, wait abit, and then come back it
stays aero for about ten seconds, flashes black, and goes back to turning
aero off, none of my programs turn it off, it just decides to go back to 16
bit color.

 

[Malke]

That's all good and well, I troubleshooted, clean booted, and everything.
But whenever I lock my computer with Vista, wait abit, and then come back
it stays aero for about ten seconds, flashes black, and goes back to
turning aero off, none of my programs turn it off, it just decides to go
back to 16 bit color.

Then it sounds like your video card is failing. If you've installed the
latest drivers for it (gotten from either the video card mftr.'s website or
the OEM's website if you have that sort of machine like a Dell, HP, etc.)
and the problem still occurs, then uninstall the card and swap it out for a
known working one. If this is a laptop, contact the laptop mftr.'s tech
support for replacement.

Malke

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

Then it sounds like your video card is failing. If you've installed the
latest drivers for it (gotten from either the video card mftr.'s website
or
the OEM's website if you have that sort of machine like a Dell, HP, etc.)
and the problem still occurs, then uninstall the card and swap it out for
a
known working one. If this is a laptop, contact the laptop mftr.'s tech
support for replacement.

Malke

Malke, just out of curiosity do you know why the video card mfgs don't
provide test software similar to what the hard drive mfgs do? Or do they
and I just haven't looked right? (I know, even my cosmetic surgeon says I
don't look right)

 

[Malke]

Colin Barnhorst wrote:

Malke, just out of curiosity do you know why the video card mfgs don't
provide test software similar to what the hard drive mfgs do? Or do they
and I just haven't looked right? (I know, even my cosmetic surgeon says I
don't look right)

The only software I know about that would vaguely do this sort of thing is
benchmark software like Sisoft Sandra. That software runs a card under a
sort of Real Life simulation to give you an idea of how fast your card is,
but I don't think there's any actual diagnostic ability; i.e., your card is
bad. I've run video tests before like the ones Dell includes in their
Utility Partition/Resource CD and the ones on various rescue disks of the
Ultimate Book Disk type but to be honest, I don't know that I believe in
them. It seems to me that all of those tests are running in DOS or a
DOS-like mode which don't stress a card like Real Mode does.

This is why I rely on the old "swap it out" routine. It has been my
experience, gained through many years of working on my own and clients'
boxen, that if changing drivers around doesn't help then the card is
probably dying. It happens. I just finally gave up on an older box of mine
that had a once-very-expensive AGP card in it. When this card would no
longer perform its 3D duties of fragging aliens (with my son at the helm,
not me!), I decided the computer had been upgraded to the end of its life
and replaced it.

Anyway, that's all I know about this. I'm certainly interested to see if
anyone else has more useful information to add!

Cheers,

Malke