Vista - Built-in color selection (eyedropper) tool not working anywhere

Ever since I migrated to a Vista Business computer, the eye dropper tool has
stopped working in several applications, including FrontPage 2003, Adobe
Photoshop Elements, and even my old standby, Image Composer. When I use this
tool in any of the programs, it immediately displays black as the selected
color (before I even click on another color) and won't change.

I'm currently using a third-party utility (Colourificator) as a workaround,
but that takes several additional steps to accomplish the same result that
one click with the eyedropper used to handle.

Is there anything that can be done to fix the problem in Vista itself?
Perhaps a registry tweak? Vista is the only common denominator I have found
since all of the programs still work properly on my WinXP machines.

PS: This problem is also occurring in the new Expression Web software that
was just released to replace FrontPage.

On Wed, 4 Apr 2007 08:20:00 -0700, KFloyde
<KFloyde@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:

>Ever since I migrated to a Vista Business computer, the eye dropper tool has
>stopped working in several applications, including FrontPage 2003, Adobe
>Photoshop Elements, and even my old standby, Image Composer. When I use this
>tool in any of the programs, it immediately displays black as the selected
>color (before I even click on another color) and won't change.
>
>I'm currently using a third-party utility (Colourificator) as a workaround,
>but that takes several additional steps to accomplish the same result that
>one click with the eyedropper used to handle.
>
>Is there anything that can be done to fix the problem in Vista itself?
>Perhaps a registry tweak? Vista is the only common denominator I have found
>since all of the programs still work properly on my WinXP machines.

Interesting, I see the same kind of malfunction with the Vegas
eyedropper tool as well. Vegas is a pro grade video editor. If I try
to select an area with the eyedropper tool, it just shows a black
area, and the color wheels in the filter it is suppose to effect don't
change, so it don't automate a black or white point correction like it
used to in XP. However if I just click on a single pixel with the
eyedropper tool in Vegas, it still functions correctly.

I was thinking it could be a video driver issue, maybe something wrong
with Vegas (doubtful), maybe it is Vista itself. Don't know yet.
Interesting others see it also in other applicatons with a different
eyedropper tool. The one I'm referring to is build-into Vegas.

Just curious, what video card and driver are you using?

I'm using NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT driver 7.15.10.9746. I tired a later
driver that crashed so went back to this one.

I'm a bit embarrassed to admit this, but I'm not sure of the specs on my
video card.
It's a Dell Inspiron MXC061 notebook and when I look in Device Manager >
Display
Adapter, here's what it shows:
Mobile Intel(R) 945GM Express Chipset Family (Driver 7.14.10.1147)

Does this help? I know software, but when it comes to hardware issues, my
brain
does an automatic shutdown...

On Wed, 4 Apr 2007 10:24:02 -0700, KFloyde
<KFloyde@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:

>I'm a bit embarrassed to admit this, but I'm not sure of the specs on my
>video card.
>It's a Dell Inspiron MXC061 notebook and when I look in Device Manager >
>Display
>Adapter, here's what it shows:
>Mobile Intel(R) 945GM Express Chipset Family (Driver 7.14.10.1147)
>
>Does this help? I know software, but when it comes to hardware issues, my
>brain
>does an automatic shutdown...

If you want to learn a lot about Vista knows about your hardware and
software, just click on the Start button then type in 'system' then
click on System Information if more than one hit shows up in the list.
Quite detailed report and it normally will show conflicts detailed
better than Device Manager.

You do need to expand the folders in the left window pane to see all
the details. For example if you expand Hardware, then pick memory,
you'll get a list of how Vista is assigning memory and if anything has
trouble. If you expand Software, then look in System Drivers, you see
what drivers have been loaded and if or not some didn't make it, which
would indicate something isn't right.

Thanks for the info, sounds like you have graphics build in and not a
seperate card, so that probably means my problem isn't my video card,
but who knows.

Thank you very much for the information, Adam... even though it may not solve
this eyedropper issue, I know that your instructions will come in handy for
troubleshooting other problems that occur. I appreciate the time you took to
give me this "hardware lesson"! 8)

Well, it looks like this apparent bug has been fixed by Windows Update. I
used the eyedropper tool today in various programs and it worked like a
charm. FYI, I'm on Version 6.0 (Build 6000).

Well, it was nice while it lasted. I'm still on Version 6.0 (Build 6000),
but since Friday, I've once again lost the functionality of the eye dropper
tool in various programs. Does anyone know if any of the recent Windows
Updates could have affected this feature?

I finally figured out a solution to this... right-click on the EXE file for
each program involved. Click the Compatibility tab and changing the setting
to Windows XP. All of my color pickers work again!