drastic change in UI display

Setup: Win7 64 bit on Sager NP8760 laptop (i7)

I've somehow unset or set something that is causing my desktop display
to really suffer. Taskbar displays none of the usual shadows etc and
the start button now looks like the old win XP. That is, it is not a
largish round button but a smallish rectangle.

Where it really sucks is the browsers display.

IE or Firefox show only really basic view... flat lines where there
should be shadow and borders. View is very primitive.

Note the partial screen shot here for a look at how firefox looks
parked on MSNBC home page:

callisto.jtan.com/~reader/vu/disp.cgi

I had a similar occurrence once before that turned out to be a setting
in the "Ease of access" settings that turns off all or most visual
effects, animation etc.

It is a check box found at:

Control Panel Ease of Access
Ease of Access Center make the computer easier to see Then
chkbox Turn off all unnecessary animation (when possible)


That time around I found the box checked.... So I, Unchecked it, and
all returned to normal.

------- --------- ---=--- --------- --------

However, this time, that setting is NOT checked, and yet I'm having
the same kind of UI visuals impairment.

Can anyone offer suggestions as to where to look for a solution?

I've been Googling a good while but not finding good hits that are
even close to describing what I'm seeing, let alone have a solution.

As is often the case, I suspect there are better search strings I
could use.... but not coming up with good ones.

Harry Putnam reader newsguy.com wrote:

Setup: Win7 64 bit on Sager NP8760 laptop (i7)

I've somehow unset or set something that is causing my desktop
display to really suffer. Taskbar displays none of the usual
shadows etc and the start button now looks like the old win XP.
That is, it is not a largish round button but a smallish
rectangle.

Where it really sucks is the browsers display.

IE or Firefox show only really basic view... flat lines where
there should be shadow and borders. View is very primitive.

Note the partial screen shot here for a look at how firefox
looks parked on MSNBC home page:

callisto.jtan.com/~reader/vu/disp.cgi

Control Panel Personalization ?

"Harry Putnam" wrote in message
...
Setup: Win7 64 bit on Sager NP8760 laptop (i7)

I've somehow unset or set something that is causing my desktop display
to really suffer. Taskbar displays none of the usual shadows etc and
the start button now looks like the old win XP. That is, it is not a
largish round button but a smallish rectangle.

Where it really sucks is the browsers display.

IE or Firefox show only really basic view... flat lines where there
should be shadow and borders. View is very primitive.

Note the partial screen shot here for a look at how firefox looks
parked on MSNBC home page:

callisto.jtan.com/~reader/vu/disp.cgi

I had a similar occurrence once before that turned out to be a setting
in the "Ease of access" settings that turns off all or most visual
effects, animation etc.

It is a check box found at:

Control Panel Ease of Access
Ease of Access Center make the computer easier to see Then
chkbox Turn off all unnecessary animation (when possible)


That time around I found the box checked.... So I, Unchecked it, and
all returned to normal.

------- --------- ---=--- --------- --------

However, this time, that setting is NOT checked, and yet I'm having
the same kind of UI visuals impairment.

Can anyone offer suggestions as to where to look for a solution?

I've been Googling a good while but not finding good hits that are
even close to describing what I'm seeing, let alone have a solution.

As is often the case, I suspect there are better search strings I
could use.... but not coming up with good ones.


It sounds like you have changed your Theme to Basic. Click Start, type
'theme', select 'Change the Theme'. You can figure it out from there.

"KCB" writes:

"Harry Putnam" wrote in message
...
Setup: Win7 64 bit on Sager NP8760 laptop (i7)

I've somehow unset or set something that is causing my desktop display
to really suffer. Taskbar displays none of the usual shadows etc and
the start button now looks like the old win XP. That is, it is not a
largish round button but a smallish rectangle.

Where it really sucks is the browsers display.

IE or Firefox show only really basic view... flat lines where there
should be shadow and borders. View is very primitive.

Note the partial screen shot here for a look at how firefox looks
parked on MSNBC home page:

callisto.jtan.com/~reader/vu/disp.cgi

I had a similar occurrence once before that turned out to be a setting
in the "Ease of access" settings that turns off all or most visual
effects, animation etc.

It is a check box found at:

Control Panel Ease of Access
Ease of Access Center make the computer easier to see Then
chkbox Turn off all unnecessary animation (when possible)


That time around I found the box checked.... So I, Unchecked it, and
all returned to normal.

------- --------- ---=--- --------- --------

However, this time, that setting is NOT checked, and yet I'm having
the same kind of UI visuals impairment.

Can anyone offer suggestions as to where to look for a solution?

I've been Googling a good while but not finding good hits that are
even close to describing what I'm seeing, let alone have a solution.

As is often the case, I suspect there are better search strings I
could use.... but not coming up with good ones.


It sounds like you have changed your Theme to Basic. Click Start,
type 'theme', select 'Change the Theme'. You can figure it out from
there.

Geez, after all that digging around, it turns out to be something
really obvious. Thank you.

But I don't really understand what happened. The picutre I have for a
desktop wallpaper is the same I've been using for mnths. So that
didn't change, but somehow some kind of basic overlay or underlay
seems to have crept in.

I don't really understand fully how that 'personalize' is supposed to
work, and definitely haven't been fooling with it lately.... but it is
now fixed.... firefox has its usual look as does the task bar.

Thanks again

"Harry Putnam" wrote in message
...
"KCB" writes:

"Harry Putnam" wrote in message
...
Setup: Win7 64 bit on Sager NP8760 laptop (i7)

I've somehow unset or set something that is causing my desktop display
to really suffer. Taskbar displays none of the usual shadows etc and
the start button now looks like the old win XP. That is, it is not a
largish round button but a smallish rectangle.

Where it really sucks is the browsers display.

IE or Firefox show only really basic view... flat lines where there
should be shadow and borders. View is very primitive.

Note the partial screen shot here for a look at how firefox looks
parked on MSNBC home page:

callisto.jtan.com/~reader/vu/disp.cgi

I had a similar occurrence once before that turned out to be a setting
in the "Ease of access" settings that turns off all or most visual
effects, animation etc.

It is a check box found at:

Control Panel Ease of Access
Ease of Access Center make the computer easier to see Then
chkbox Turn off all unnecessary animation (when possible)


That time around I found the box checked.... So I, Unchecked it, and
all returned to normal.

------- --------- ---=--- --------- --------

However, this time, that setting is NOT checked, and yet I'm having
the same kind of UI visuals impairment.

Can anyone offer suggestions as to where to look for a solution?

I've been Googling a good while but not finding good hits that are
even close to describing what I'm seeing, let alone have a solution.

As is often the case, I suspect there are better search strings I
could use.... but not coming up with good ones.


It sounds like you have changed your Theme to Basic. Click Start,
type 'theme', select 'Change the Theme'. You can figure it out from
there.

Geez, after all that digging around, it turns out to be something
really obvious. Thank you.

But I don't really understand what happened. The picutre I have for a
desktop wallpaper is the same I've been using for mnths. So that
didn't change, but somehow some kind of basic overlay or underlay
seems to have crept in.

I don't really understand fully how that 'personalize' is supposed to
work, and definitely haven't been fooling with it lately.... but it is
now fixed.... firefox has its usual look as does the task bar.

Thanks again

Glad to have helped. There are many reasons this could have happened,
including an errant program that did not exit properly, the system running
low on free RAM, or even some unknown hotkeys associated with your video
driver or settings.

I didn't look up your machine to see what graphics chipset is on it, but
this problem is known to occur more frequently on machines that share system
memory with on-board video hardware.

Chuck Anderson writes:

[...]

It sounds like you have changed your Theme to Basic. Click Start,
type 'theme', select 'Change the Theme'. You can figure it out from
there.


Geez, after all that digging around, it turns out to be something
really obvious. Thank you.

But I don't really understand what happened. The picutre I have for a
desktop wallpaper is the same I've been using for mnths. So that
didn't change, but somehow some kind of basic overlay or underlay
seems to have crept in.

I don't really understand fully how that 'personalize' is supposed to
work, and definitely haven't been fooling with it lately.... but it is
now fixed.... firefox has its usual look as does the task bar.

Thanks again


It sounds like you accidentally turned off the aero "experience" -
with translucent window effects and lots of stuff many people hate. I,
myself, am kind of hooked on it.

How does one turn off the Aero stuff on purpose? Maybe I'd know what
to watch out for.

"KCB" writes:

[...]

It sounds like you have changed your Theme to Basic. Click Start,
type 'theme', select 'Change the Theme'. You can figure it out from
there.

Geez, after all that digging around, it turns out to be something
really obvious. Thank you.

But I don't really understand what happened. The picutre I have for a
desktop wallpaper is the same I've been using for mnths. So that
didn't change, but somehow some kind of basic overlay or underlay
seems to have crept in.

I don't really understand fully how that 'personalize' is supposed to
work, and definitely haven't been fooling with it lately.... but it is
now fixed.... firefox has its usual look as does the task bar.

Thanks again

Glad to have helped. There are many reasons this could have happened,
including an errant program that did not exit properly, the system
running low on free RAM, or even some unknown hotkeys associated with
your video driver or settings.

I didn't look up your machine to see what graphics chipset is on it,
but this problem is known to occur more frequently on machines that
share system memory with on-board video hardware.

Mine does have that feature of sharing ram for the video.

Here is what the basic hardware report shows:

Video Adapter ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5800 Series (1024 MB)
3D Accelerator ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5870 (Broadway)

As much digging as I've done, both times something similar has
happened to me... I never ran across other reports of similar
occurrences with others. Maybe other folks reported them in much
different language than me, but being it is fairly common, seems I'd
have caught something in all my digging.

Do you happen to have info about other occurrences to hand?