Luna Visual Style

[Guest]

To anyone who can help:

Thanks for the link to Kelly's site to help with xp visual style problems. I have used this site and the following "fixes" (164, 176, 187, 214, and 271) hoping for resolution. No such luck. Still stuck in classic view about 50% of the time.

I get the following error message when trying to load the luna style: "The visual style could not be reapplied. The service did not respond to the control request in a timely fashion". When I go check on the theme service it seems to be running properly, so this seems very strange to me.

All of this seems to have started shortly after I loaded up the latest version of Norton Systemworks (2004 version) on my new system. I am not sure that this has anything to do with the problem...perhaps there is a conflict between the Norton product and XP. Uninstall did not fix.

Any other suggestions or ideas.

Thanks.

 

[Kelly]

Right click My Computer/Properties/Advanced/Performance/Settings. Scroll to
the very bottom and place a check in use visual styles on windows and
buttons.

 

[Guest]

Kelly or Anyone who can help,

I am getting a new error message. The message reads "The theme could not load. The service has not been started". I was excited to see something new after all this time, but alas it has not helped.

I have checked the theme service under admin tools \ services to see that the service was started automatically and appears to be running. I even stopped it and then restarted to see if this would help. No luck.

Whatever is causing these theme issues should be made into a patch and provided to everyone by MS in their windows update process. I am hopeful that the theme issue is isolated and not effecting other system processes.

Cheers.

 

[J. S. Pack]

Kelly or Anyone who can help,

I am getting a new error message. The message reads "The theme could not load. The service has not been started". I was excited to see something new after all this time, but alas it has not helped.

I have checked the theme service under admin tools \ services to see that the service was started automatically and appears to be running. I even stopped it and then restarted to see if this would help. No luck.

Whatever is causing these theme issues should be made into a patch and provided to everyone by MS in their windows update process. I am hopeful that the theme issue is isolated and not effecting other system processes.

Cheers.

Tough problem. Annoying, too, I would agree. You can of course just do a
clean install, but naturally you want to avoid that.

I haven't seen Kelley's site for this problem, so I'm not sure what you've
tried already.

Have you tried logging in as a different user, or a new user, and checking
to see whether the problem still exists? If it goes away, then use that as
your new default account, adjusting the start menu as necessary.

Have you tried going into Windows\Resources\Themes and trying to directly
execute one of the .theme or .msstyle files? What happens if you do?

Try downloading some other themes from www.themexp.org and see if others
behave similarly. Well, they probably do.

Just a shot in the dark, but you might download StyleXP from
www.stardock.com and give it a trial and see if it somehow straightens
things out. You might like it so much you'll decide to buy. There's also
Windowblinds, of course. Must be a million folks out there using it to
avoid that cartoonish luna/teletubby look.

And then there's the radical workaround of just ditching explorer as your
shell and changing over to the faster, far better-looking, more versatile
Aston or bb4win (bblean) (free) or litestep (free). Alternative shells have
at last come of age. A vast number of great styles and themes to choose
from there. Browse through http://www.astonshell.com/skins/index.php and
http://browse.deviantart.com/skins/themes/blackbox/ to see how much better
your desktop could look anyway. There'll be somewhat of a learning curve,
esp. w/ bblean, which you may or may not enjoy, but there are forums in
which to get support. Me, I'm glad I left explorer behind months ago and no
way I'll be going back.

Pls report back and let us know the outcome.

 

[Guest]

Pack,

I have already tried to reinstalled XP (not clean - didn't want to lose everything). Unfortunately, this did not really help.

Tried your idea on the "New User", but this did not resolve. I reviewed the other sites you mentioned below and the one that seems to stand out is the Aston. I was going to install it but the program indicated I had to buy it...I am not interested in buying something at this time.

So I seem to be stuck in the classic view forever...like an episode of "The Twilight Zone". My computer is only a few months old...if it was within the 30 day return policy (warranty) with all of this going on I would send it back to the manufacturer.

Cheers.

 

[Guest]

Kelly & Pack,

I think I have learned a lot about themes and XP after running into this little "themes problem". Unfortunately it has been like playing 3 card monte with the devil (MS) with no possibility of winning.

I have read all the boards on this issue and I have not had success with any of the advice. I believe this is a BUG in Windows XP. I just hope it is confined to the theme and not security or other functions.

Please respond if you have a real fix. And please pass along this infuriating problem to Microsoft...not that they care.

Cheers.

 

[Kelly]

Hi Paul,

Try the edit via my utility. If that doesn't help, I will need for you to
export some of your registry keys.

Taskbar Repair Tool Plus!
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/taskbarplus!.htm

 

[Kelly]

This is not a bug.....the answer depends on when/what and how this happened
in the first place. XP is not the fault here.

 

[Guest]

Kelly,

I went back to play with this little problem this evening. I decided to try your tool and your website again to see if I could finally solve this problem. Well, instead of solving anything it seems to have gotten worse.

Now I am in classic 100% of the time after running your solutions #187, #164, and #117. I had run some of these a while back but thought I would give them another try. The windows and buttons tab under display does not show any options, not even the classic one that is greyed out now...never had that problem before.

I guess this is a fairly serious bug with XP because no one really responds to many of the messages on the board here.

Still searching for answers to the XP Luna bug.

 

[Guest]

I went to the registry to see if I could find anything strange. I looked under the current user & local machine in the software\microsoft\windows\policies folders to see what was there... Under the currentuser only \explorer and \system, but under the local machine there are two additional folders \nonenum and \ratings. The NonEnum folder is the one of interest. The three files under this folder do not have regular names but instead have long undescript names --

{0DF44EAA-FF21-4412-828E-260A8728E7F1} VALUE SET = 20
{6DFD7C5C-2451-11d3-A299-00C04F8EF6AF} VALUE SET = 40000021
{BDEADF00-C265-11D0-BCED-00A0C90AB50F} VALUE SET = 1

Does anyone have any ideas on these three REG_DWORD type files in the registry? Could this be my problem?

 

[Testy]

Go to Admin Tools run Services and make sure Themes Service is set to auto.

Testy

Kelly,

I went back to play with this little problem this evening. I decided to

try your tool and your website again to see if I could finally solve this
problem. Well, instead of solving anything it seems to have gotten worse.

Now I am in classic 100% of the time after running your solutions #187,

#164, and #117. I had run some of these a while back but thought I would
give them another try. The windows and buttons tab under display does not
show any options, not even the classic one that is greyed out now...never
had that problem before.

I guess this is a fairly serious bug with XP because no one really

responds to many of the messages on the board here.

 

[Guest]

Testy,

The strange thing about the Themes service is that when I go to check on it, the system shows that it is set to automatic and running. But when I double click on Luna to run it tells me the service is not running. If I click on the classic theme it will run without any error...only the luna theme gives me this message. I have reinstalled the luna theme from DVD and then from Kelly's site thinking maybe it was corrupt...this didn't solve.

This is a very aggrevating thing. I know people reading these posts think that I have no computer skills or knowledge...but I have worked in the computer technical field for many years...seem many strange things, but nothing like this....I have rebuilt users systems to fix problems at work, but I really don't want to do that at home if I can help it. Mainly because I don't understand what caused it or how serious it is...

I also feel this board tends to give people simple and quick responses...probably good most of the time, but in this case it has not been helpful. Almost like no one has ever dealth with this problem before.

Regards.

 

[Donald McDaniel]

Testy,

The strange thing about the Themes service is that when I go to check
on it, the system shows that it is set to automatic and running.
But when I double click on Luna to run it tells me the service is not
running. If I click on the classic theme it will run without any
error...only the luna theme gives me this message. I have
reinstalled the luna theme from DVD and then from Kelly's site
thinking maybe it was corrupt...this didn't solve.

This is a very aggrevating thing. I know people reading these posts
think that I have no computer skills or knowledge...but I have worked
in the computer technical field for many years...seem many strange
things, but nothing like this....I have rebuilt users systems to fix
problems at work, but I really don't want to do that at home if I can
help it. Mainly because I don't understand what caused it or how
serious it is...

I also feel this board tends to give people simple and quick
responses...probably good most of the time, but in this case it has
not been helpful. Almost like no one has ever dealth with this
problem before.

Regards.

Try running the System File Checker.
First insert your XP installation CD in the drive(close the installer which
begins if autorun is turned on for CD/DVD devices), then open a command
prompt (Start/Run/cmd)
Next, enter the command "sfc /scannow" (without the quote marks) at the
command prompt. The command will begin to work, and will search for and
replace all corrupted or missing system files. This may take a while, and
you may need to reinstall all Service Packs.

Or, try a System Restore to a point before you began having the problem.
The next thing you could try would be doing a Repair Install of the OS.
Boot with the XP install CD, and when prompted the SECOND time to repair the
OS, choose to repair. This will install the OS on top of itself, keeping
most programs and settings intact on the HD (you may need to reinstall
Microsoft Office or other programs after a Repair Install, however). You
will need your CD key to do a Repair Install.

If you opt to repair the OS from the FIRST prompt to repair, you will just
be dumped to the Repair Console, where you will be able to use a subset of
DOS-like commands from a DOS-like command prompt. You will need your
Administrator password (not your username password) to access the Repair
Console. Use this first option if all you need to do is repair the Boot
Sector or reinstall the Boot files.

You will have to reinstall all Windows XP Service Packs and updates to XP
after doing a Repair Install.

Your last resort, of course, is a complete "clean" install of the OS.

 

[J. S. Pack]

Testy,

The strange thing about the Themes service is that when I go to check on it, the system shows that it is set to automatic and running. But when I double click on Luna to run it tells me the service is not running. If I click on the classic theme it will run without any error...only the luna theme gives me this message. I have reinstalled the luna theme from DVD and then from Kelly's site thinking maybe it was corrupt...this didn't solve.

This is a very aggrevating thing. I know people reading these posts think that I have no computer skills or knowledge...but I have worked in the computer technical field for many years...seem many strange things, but nothing like this....I have rebuilt users systems to fix problems at work, but I really don't want to do that at home if I can help it. Mainly because I don't understand what caused it or how serious it is...

I also feel this board tends to give people simple and quick responses...probably good most of the time, but in this case it has not been helpful. Almost like no one has ever dealth with this problem before.

Regards.

Very weird problem. The reinstall should have taken care of any corrupt
file, so must be something deep in the registry hence difficult to find.
You can try the SFC scan once anyway as one poster suggested.

It's another long shot, but download and install
http://www.softpedia.com/public/cat/13/9/13-9-100.shtml

then download some other visual styles, click on them in the
windows\resource folder to see if they take (since problems w/ the windows
desktop dialog).

 

[Guest]

Don,

I thank you for your input below. I performed the system scan (didn't find any problems) and I had already performed the SP reinstall thinking this would solve my problems. No such luck.

Any other ideas?

Regards.

 

[Guest]

JS,

How do I clean the registry if the reinstall didn't do this...short of reformatting hard drive and reinstalling everything...I am having a hard time believing the stupid xp theme issue is this hard to resolve.

I am starting to understand why so many people hate Microsoft...putting products like this out will ensure that kind of response. I have always been a big supporter of Microsoft, but that is changing due to this stupid theme issue.

Regards.