W7U-64 (couple years old or so) Acer Aspire 4530 This isn't a big deal but I'd like to know what's causing it if possible. It's only happened a few times, but today again when I booted, the desktop came up in the wrong theme colors and style... the wallpaper was correct, but the toolbar was gray/steel colored instead of my theme color/style. When this occurs everything comes up in the sys tray fine, but the system is still working and can't be used. After a minute or more delay, (while apparently W7 works on getting the theme corrected), the screen finally refreshes to load the correct theme colors and style. Anyone know offhand what's likely causing this behavior? Thanks.
Sounds like your system is struggling to boot and taking much longer to get into Aero mode and thus complete loading of Windows. Did this start after you made a system change or installed new software? Are you maybe overtaxing your system with too many programs starting when Windows starts? Have you scanned for viruses, root kits and the like to rule those out? What are your system specs? If you upgraded from XP (or some other OS) you may need a more robust system. Maybe you need more RAM. How much open space do you have on your C: drive? Windows needs room to breath. Is your pagefile large enough? Are you getting any error messages? Have you checked the Event Viewer logs to see what they might have to say? Once Windows is fully loaded are any other programs also running slowly?
Yes, when this happens, which is infrequently. If it were any of these things I'd expect it to be consistently happening, or at least more often. IAC I keep programs/pocesses that start up at boot to an absolute minimum with a start up manager, and always have. I scan every couple weeks with OD scanners in addition to running my usual real time scanner. And the last time this happened, I'd just finished scanning the day b/f with several OD scanners I was trying out. Plus I use gmer.exe and run boot scans, so I know the machine is clean. As above. I could use another GB of RAM (running on 3GB) for faster boot and overall performance, but I don't believe that's what's causing it to come up with the wrong toolbar on infrequent occasions. I have been running this system with this config for nearly 2 years. The Acer came with Vista 64-bit. I uninstalled and did a clean install of W7 64, (again, close to 2 yrs ago now). It's been fine, and this behavior of coming up with the wrong tool bar once in a blue moon has happened maybe 3 times in the last 6 months. Was just curious if anyone else experienced it. Plenty. The system partition is 80GB with less than 40 used by W7. Other data resides on subsequent partitions. Per MS I let the OS handle the pagefile size, and it seems fine where it is, looking at mem usage stats. Nope. Nope. I never think of that. And because it rights itself I guess I didn't expect to see an entry. But next time (if it happens again) I'll try checking the event logs. Nope. Just that hiccup and again, not often. Thanks for your suggestion. Next time I'll check out the event log...
Sounds like something you can live with then. Of course you could always wipe your drive and reinstall 7 but that's a bit extreme. Wipe and reinstall solves a plethora of problems but your particular one seems to be tolerable to you. Do what I do, start the computer and then go make a pot of the world's best coffee. By the time you get back it'll be all booted, warmed up and ready to go. You might be surprised by what's recorded in the event logs ... and what's not recorded for that matter. You might consider a failing drive. That seems a bit of a stretch to me, but stranger things have happened.
Take the windows 7 built in aero repair tool for a spin and see what it says... Type "fix aero" in the start menu search bar - you will get one result : "find and fix problems with transparency yadayadayada. Just click the link and run the tool. At the end you can click a link to "show more details". The tool worked for me a while back.