OT:Win7 Aero Grayed out

[falcon409]

Sorry for the Off-Topic thread, but I'm hoping someone else has had this problem and can relate a fix. Somewhere along the way while using PC Cleaner Pro (almost certain this is the root cause) my Aero settings have gone south on me. I've run the normal troubleshooter and as is usually the case. . .it finds nothing. I've also run Microsoft's "Fixit" utility and according to it I don't have a video card that supports Aero (not true as I've had this video card since building the current PC and Aero worked fine up until a month or so ago). I've tried remedies from the Internet (yea, dangerous I know), in particular running a "reg" file to add the specific "Aero" related tags to the registry. . .nothing works.

Has anyone ever had this problem, or know how to reactivate the Aero function in Win7?

[Jafo]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desktop_Window_Manager

DWM service is likely stopped/disabled.

[falcon409]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desktop_Window_Manager

DWM service is likely stopped/disabled.
As far as I can tell, it's running. The dwm.exe is running and shows up in the processes window. . . .however it doesn't show in the services window. I'd be even more concerned if the Themes for Aero were missing as well, but they're there, just grayed out. I normally don't use the Aero functions, but turning Aero on improves the performance in P3D.

[Jafo]

Check your display settings...Aero needs full colour...;)

[Dumonceau]

Try this one Falcon:

http://www.mydigitallife.info/how-to-turn-on-and-enable-aero-in-windows-7-enable-aero-peek/

Hope this helps!

Dumonceau

[falcon409]

Try this one Falcon:
http://www.mydigitallife.info/how-to-turn-on-and-enable-aero-in-windows-7-enable-aero-peek/
Hope this helps!
Dumonceau
Thanks, that's something I had already tried and failed on, lol. It seems to be a case of Aero not being active, but I'll be darned if I can figure out why it isn't. . .especially since it was working fine a few months ago. It isn't something I pay much attention to and so exactly when it went south is unknown. I'm at a loss now.

[falcon409]

Sheesh, finally tracked it down. In a list of processes there was one related to themes that was disabled (most likely done when I ran PC Cleaner Pro). I enabled it, rebooted the system and Aero is back up and running. Thanks everyone for your help and suggestions.:triumphant: