I can't select Aero anymore, could yesterday.

[Guest]

I was running Aero Glass in RC2 up until this morning with no problems. I
rebooted today, it isn't running any longer, and it isn't listed as an option
anymore. In addition, I can't set any themes at all: none are listed.

Relevant System Specs:

AMD Sempron 3000+ 2.0GHz
1.5GB RAM
ATI 9600XT 256MB (WDDM Driver) (rated 4.1)

No idea what has happened, but the following hack posted everywhere doesn't
work for me.

1/ Ensure that you have the following registry value set to :

HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\DWM\Composition set to 1 (32-bit DWORD)

HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\DWM\CompositionPolicy set to 2 (32-bit DWORD)

2/ Restart DWM by opening a command prompt with administrative privileges

- Type 'net stop uxsms'
- Then 'net start uxsms'

Any theme I change to I get an error that it isn't a valid theme, even
though they are listed.

The only themes that are listed are:

Windows Standard
Windows Classic
High Contrast White
High Contrast Black
High Contrast #2
High Contrast #1

There is no way to enable transparency on the appearance settings, under the
advanced settings there, and no themes are listed in the themes selector.

DWM is running. I have tried a system restore to a date when Aero did work,
I tried to also run the startup recovery and checkdisk with no results. Vista
was activated over a week ago, and it reports that it is activated in the
control panel. Any ideas?

 

[Guest]

I was running Aero Glass in RC2 up until this morning with no problems. I
rebooted today, it isn't running any longer, and it isn't listed as an option
anymore. In addition, I can't set any themes at all: none are listed.

Relevant System Specs:

AMD Sempron 3000+ 2.0GHz
1.5GB RAM
ATI 9600XT 256MB (WDDM Driver) (rated 4.1)

No idea what has happened, but the following hack posted everywhere doesn't
work for me.

1/ Ensure that you have the following registry value set to :

HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\DWM\Composition set to 1 (32-bit DWORD)

HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\DWM\CompositionPolicy set to 2 (32-bit DWORD)

2/ Restart DWM by opening a command prompt with administrative privileges

- Type 'net stop uxsms'
- Then 'net start uxsms'

Any theme I change to I get an error that it isn't a valid theme, even
though they are listed.

The only themes that are listed are:

Windows Standard
Windows Classic
High Contrast White
High Contrast Black
High Contrast #2
High Contrast #1

There is no way to enable transparency on the appearance settings, under the
advanced settings there, and no themes are listed in the themes selector.

DWM is running. I have tried a system restore to a date when Aero did work,
I tried to also run the startup recovery and checkdisk with no results. Vista
was activated over a week ago, and it reports that it is activated in the
control panel. Any ideas?

Just to clarify a bit, no themes are listed in the theme selector, the
themes I listed are actually color schemes...

 

[Travis King]

DWM shows up on my computer even when I turn off Aero Glass, although it
doesn't use as much resources. No Glass problems here. It seems kind of
odd for you to be having this problem. By chance did you change your
drivers? On RC2, are you using Ati's RC1 drivers or Microsoft's included
drivers? You should use Microsoft's included drivers until Ati releases the
RC2 drivers, which are supposed to be coming 'shortly', but they said that a
few weeks ago. My computer's very similar to yours, and it's running Aero
Glass just fine and has since Beta 2, without any problems of it disabling.
Windows Vista Build 5744 x86 (32-bit) Ultimate
AMD Sempron 64 2800+ 1.8GHz (OC'd) (3.7 rating)
1.5GB PC-2700 RAM (4.1 rating)
Ati Radeon X1600 PRO AGP 8x 256MB GDDR2 (rated 4.4 for graphics and 4.9 for
gaming graphics)

 

[Guest]

I would be running the Vista drivers. I have read in discussion groups that
it is the best option at this time.

I find it rather odd as well. I have been beating my head against it for
several hours with no results. Aero ran fine under RC1, and has run fine
under RC2 until this morning.

I checked the error logs, and noticed that DWM crashed a couple of days ago,
but was restarted automatically without incident.

It is as if all of my themes have just disappeared...

 

[Andre Da Costa [Extended64]]

I notice on some PC's, Glass seems to automatically get disabled although
the video card fully supports it. You said you try enabling by checking the
Themes component under Personalization, but did you look under Windows Color
and Appearance, it should be listed as Windows Aero Basic there. Thats where
I enable it when Glass is disabled on my system.

I notice since installing the RC2 5744 x64 build though, I don't get Glass
anymore, it seems the problem seems to be related to the amount of system
ram, which is currently at 512.

 

[Guest]

Yeah, I looked there... the only color schemes available there are:

Windows Standard
Windows Classic
High Contrast White
High Contrast Black
High Contrast #2
High Contrast #1

 

[Andre Da Costa [Extended64]]

Does this occur in other user accounts also? I notice you don't even have
Windows Aero Basic listed which is not as graphically intense as Aero and
will run on slower cards with little video ram. If I were you, I would do a
reinstall.

 

[Guest]

It happens in all user accounts...

My main problem with doing a reinstall is that if I don't know what caused
it, I don't know how to fix it if it happens again. Not to mention the fact
that if I continually have to reinstall for problems with this release, I
will run out of activations soon enough. I have already used 3 activations
for separate reinstalls with this release so far, and it's only been 3 weeks.

I'd rather find a fix if possible.

 

[Andre Da Costa[ActiveWin]]

If you reactivate on the same hardware, you using the same activation you
did the first time you activated. Also, you should have up to a total of 10
activations, so you have an ample amount left.

 

[Mickey]

If you reactivate on the same hardware, you using the same activation you
did the first time you activated. Also, you should have up to a total of
10 activations, so you have an ample amount left.
--
Andre
Extended64 | http://www.extended64.com
Blog | http://www.extended64.com/blogs/andre
http://spaces.msn.com/members/adacosta

Just too add a bit to Andre's explanation;

The 10 activations mentioned indicates you can install on 10 different
computers, not that you can install 10 times on one computer.

Once activated you can install on the same computer 900 times with no
problem, as long as the hardware hasn't changed.

Mic