Vista - Aero not working.

I had Aero working for a couple of months when all of a sudden it's gone. I
have the vista theme selected, but the aero visual style isn't an option in
the colors menu (I get the classic window when I click on change colors).
I've tried all the suggestions on microsoft's site and the help section on
it, but it isn't coming up. no hardware has changed on my computer. I have
a geforce 6600 which is plenty powerful enough for aero and glass and I have
2 gigs of ram.

thanks!

remain wrote:
> I had Aero working for a couple of months when all of a sudden it's gone. I
> have the vista theme selected, but the aero visual style isn't an option in
> the colors menu (I get the classic window when I click on change colors).
> I've tried all the suggestions on microsoft's site and the help section on
> it, but it isn't coming up. no hardware has changed on my computer. I have
> a geforce 6600 which is plenty powerful enough for aero and glass and I have
> 2 gigs of ram.
>
> thanks!

"All of a sudden"? Use System Restore to go back to when it was working.
It sounds like you may have installed video drivers as an optional
update from Windows Update. Installing drivers from Windows Update is
always a bad idea.

If System Restore doesn't solve the issue, reinstall your video drivers.
Get them from:

Never get drivers from Windows Update. Get them from:

1. The device mftr.'s website; OR
2. The motherboard mftr.'s website if hardware is onboard; OR
3. The OEM's website for your specific machine if you have an OEM
computer (HP, Dell, Sony, etc.).

Read the installation instructions on the website where you get the drivers.

To find out what hardware is in your computer:

1. Read any documentation you got when you bought the computer.
2. If the computer is OEM, go to the OEM's website for your specific
model machine and look at the specs (you'll be there to get the drivers
anyway)
3. Download, install and run a free system inventory program like Belarc
Advisor.

http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html


Malke
--
Elephant Boy Computers
www.elephantboycomputers.com
"Don't Panic!"
MS-MVP Windows - Shell/User

Actually what happened was I was working remotely via RDP when the power went
out. When the computer came back up my profile couldn't be found because it
couldn't find or use the NTUSER.dat file dispite it being right where it was
supposed to be and I am a domain admin (my computer is part of a
domain...vista ultimate).

I was able to get it working again by copying my profile files to another
location, then blowing it away in advanced system options.

While all this was going on I noticed that aero was not working. I've tried
all sorts of things as I mentioned before including registry hacks to make it
not check the video ram (which I have enough of), updating the drivers from
NVidia, deleting and readding the video card. The MSstyle is in the proper
place on the harddrive (the %systemroot%\resources directory) but it doesn't
show up in the styles list, just vista basic. I've tried restarting the DWM
services even.

I tried doing a system restore to 2 weeks before this happened and it was
still an issue. Is there a way of reinstalling the system files with vista?
I'm not sure what else will fix it at this point.

"Malke" wrote:

> remain wrote:
> > I had Aero working for a couple of months when all of a sudden it's gone. I
> > have the vista theme selected, but the aero visual style isn't an option in
> > the colors menu (I get the classic window when I click on change colors).
> > I've tried all the suggestions on microsoft's site and the help section on
> > it, but it isn't coming up. no hardware has changed on my computer. I have
> > a geforce 6600 which is plenty powerful enough for aero and glass and I have
> > 2 gigs of ram.
> >
> > thanks!
>
> "All of a sudden"? Use System Restore to go back to when it was working.
> It sounds like you may have installed video drivers as an optional
> update from Windows Update. Installing drivers from Windows Update is
> always a bad idea.
>
> If System Restore doesn't solve the issue, reinstall your video drivers.
> Get them from:
>
> Never get drivers from Windows Update. Get them from:
>
> 1. The device mftr.'s website; OR
> 2. The motherboard mftr.'s website if hardware is onboard; OR
> 3. The OEM's website for your specific machine if you have an OEM
> computer (HP, Dell, Sony, etc.).
>
> Read the installation instructions on the website where you get the drivers.
>
> To find out what hardware is in your computer:
>
> 1. Read any documentation you got when you bought the computer.
> 2. If the computer is OEM, go to the OEM's website for your specific
> model machine and look at the specs (you'll be there to get the drivers
> anyway)
> 3. Download, install and run a free system inventory program like Belarc
> Advisor.
>
> http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html
>
>
> Malke
> --
> Elephant Boy Computers
> www.elephantboycomputers.com
> "Don't Panic!"
> MS-MVP Windows - Shell/User
>

A small update:

Whenever I restart DWM it says: "The Desktop Window Manager was unable to
start because the desktop composition setting is disabled" in the event log.
Why is it disabled?

"Malke" wrote:

> remain wrote:
> > I had Aero working for a couple of months when all of a sudden it's gone. I
> > have the vista theme selected, but the aero visual style isn't an option in
> > the colors menu (I get the classic window when I click on change colors).
> > I've tried all the suggestions on microsoft's site and the help section on
> > it, but it isn't coming up. no hardware has changed on my computer. I have
> > a geforce 6600 which is plenty powerful enough for aero and glass and I have
> > 2 gigs of ram.
> >
> > thanks!
>
> "All of a sudden"? Use System Restore to go back to when it was working.
> It sounds like you may have installed video drivers as an optional
> update from Windows Update. Installing drivers from Windows Update is
> always a bad idea.
>
> If System Restore doesn't solve the issue, reinstall your video drivers.
> Get them from:
>
> Never get drivers from Windows Update. Get them from:
>
> 1. The device mftr.'s website; OR
> 2. The motherboard mftr.'s website if hardware is onboard; OR
> 3. The OEM's website for your specific machine if you have an OEM
> computer (HP, Dell, Sony, etc.).
>
> Read the installation instructions on the website where you get the drivers.
>
> To find out what hardware is in your computer:
>
> 1. Read any documentation you got when you bought the computer.
> 2. If the computer is OEM, go to the OEM's website for your specific
> model machine and look at the specs (you'll be there to get the drivers
> anyway)
> 3. Download, install and run a free system inventory program like Belarc
> Advisor.
>
> http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html
>
>
> Malke
> --
> Elephant Boy Computers
> www.elephantboycomputers.com
> "Don't Panic!"
> MS-MVP Windows - Shell/User
>

remain wrote:
> A small update:
>
> Whenever I restart DWM it says: "The Desktop Window Manager was unable to
> start because the desktop composition setting is disabled" in the event log.
> Why is it disabled?

I don't know the answers to your questions. My best guess is that the
power outage corrupted parts of the system. As you know, this is a
common occurrence when a system is working, writing data to disk, and
suffers an abrupt power outage. That's why a UPS is such an important tool.

If you boot with the Vista DVD, you can choose to repair the system. You
will find the repair options at the lower left of the screen. I've had
good luck doing this with clients' machines but of course your
particular machine is unique and the repair may not work. The only way
to find out is to try it. As always, have your data backed up before
doing something of this sort.


Malke
--
Elephant Boy Computers
www.elephantboycomputers.com
"Don't Panic!"
MS-MVP Windows - Shell/User

On May 14, 10:12 pm, Malke <notrea...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
> remain wrote:
> > A small update:
>
> > Whenever I restart DWM it says: "The Desktop Window Manager was unable to
> > start because the desktop composition setting is disabled" in the event log.
> > Why is it disabled?
>
> I don't know the answers to your questions. My best guess is that the
> power outage corrupted parts of the system. As you know, this is a
> common occurrence when a system is working, writing data to disk, and
> suffers an abrupt power outage. That's why a UPS is such an important tool.
>
> If you boot with the Vista DVD, you can choose to repair the system. You
> will find the repair options at the lower left of the screen. I've had
> good luck doing this with clients' machines but of course your
> particular machine is unique and the repair may not work. The only way
> to find out is to try it. As always, have your data backed up before
> doing something of this sort.
>
> Malke
> --
> Elephant Boy Computerswww.elephantboycomputers.com
> "Don't Panic!"
> MS-MVP Windows - Shell/User

I don't know what kind of Vista DVD you were using, but when I've used
it you get 4 options, system restore (which didn't work in this guy's
case), restore from backup...and vista's backup doesn't let you backup
system files, fix boot up problems, which isn't relavant, and test
memory. There's no recovery console or generic reinstall of the
system files.

I have the same issue - Aero went away at some point, and I've tried every potential fix I could find (adding WDM key to registry, etc) and I haven't been able to figure it out. I also shut off potentially incompatible programs in msconfig like Nero, UltraVNC, etc. The only clue I get that wasn't listed above is that it says in the event log that:
"The Desktop Window Manager was unable to start because a mirroring driver is in use"
Any idea what might be causing that? I thought perhaps reloading the latest Nvidia drivers might help so I did that (my video card is an 8800GT) but that didn't help, and I disabled every service and startup program that I thought might lock the machine into some weird video mode, but I still don't see the Aero option in "Windows Color and Appearance", which only brings up an "Appearance Settings" dialog in mine, not the normal dialog where you have to pick "classic view". (sorry, may not be describing that last part verbatim since I'm doing it from memory - it doesn't come up anymore!)
Any ideas what to try next?

My machine is OEM Acer, which originally came with an embedded/shared memory ATI X1250, and Aero worked when I first got it, but at some point it stopped working (not exactly sure when) and now I see no way to get it back again. Any help greatly appreciated!