Windows 7 reverts to Windows 7 basic color scheme.

Hi everyone, long rime no see.
Re-installed windows 7 on a laptop with all the drivers , etc from the provided CD from Dell, now every time it starts I get this message saying that a program has preformed an action that is causing Windows 7 to revert to the Windows 7 basic scheme, through some tinkering I've come to find that if I terminate the Dell feature enhancement pack under the process's tab in the Task Manager it all works fine. The feature enhancement pack is what controls the keyboard back lights, etc which on that laptop does get used all the time. If I were to turn off the enhancement pack during start-up (Via "MSConfig") would I still be able to use the keyboard back lights for the keys? With the process terminated and not running the back lights and the other features still work but I don't know if I could use the features if it did not come up on start-up.
It's a Dell Latitude E6520

Any thoughts?
Spock96

 

I'd think the best way to find out is to try it. Turning off anything in MSConfig is reversible so if you don't like the results you can just turn them back on.

 

well misery loves company :-D
I cruised over here to post on a thorny issue very similar to the OP so I'll save a thread by piggybacking.

I worked on a system [was mine, sold, installed elsewhere] that needed a custom preset for Radeon card. no issues there, but saw quickly that the user had acquired some nasty infections. Cleared up all those but I think I CAUSED an issue with the Desktop like unto what the OP posted. So I have themes - we were using the Halo theme and the Candle theme - these are right off the Microsoft site and did work fine. However, now when the theme is invoked the desktop background goes all black, so Aero is not really functioning right. If I switch to a non-Aero theme like 'classic windows' everything works. Switch back, black desktop no images. I saw an Error in Windows logs related but I don't understand how to fix - its saying a dependency is set to something other than auto load or somesuch.

when cleaning up after the disinfection processes, I used Autoruns to aggressively turn off everything non-essential in the Logon section. I did turn off one Theme-related item because I thought it was non-essential. when I saw the problem, I reversed course and checked that box but the black background persists.

can someone tell me all the services and how they need to be set to get Aero coherent again?

 

@zapp,

Try Tweaking.com's Set Windows Services To Default Startup

 

good tip null!
didn't know of its existence.
also I didn't think of the obvious: run the Aero troubleshooter ... who knows? it might just find something and give the fix.

Couple of other helps I've found in the last few minutes:
"brute force" method here should be 'last resort": http://www.webtlk.com/2009/01/24/how-to-turn-on-windows-7-aero-theme/

Method 2 here sounds applicable to my kind of issue; the other methods have applicability to the general/broader desktop issues:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2504610

as an aside: I'm truly puzzled as to why theme-related entries show up in the "Logon" section of autoruns on the 'patient' windows 7 Pro machine, but do not show on my own personal Windows 7 HomePrem x64 machine, with both set to squelch the needed Microsoft entries??? there are no third party [hackware] themes on either. Games? do some games mess with these setting and substitute any files? It was my suspicion about such that caused me to mess with them to start with because the general rule of thumb in the non-MS "Logon" entries is "when in doubt, uncheck it". almost nothing really needs to be in that list, but every 3rd party anything on earth feels the need to intrude at Startup... as we all know

 

I am not a computer expert at all but Tweaking.com's programs have worked miracles for me. Do not believe they can possibly harm your system. What an awesome bunch of programs they provide. Have used several times to fix my curiosity for downloading stuff that kind of screws with my machine. Hope this helps.

 

well - I'm stumped. ran the Aero troubleshooter: no problems detected.
Ran the Tweak program, no change. that really baffles me assuming it worked - reset everything to "stock" but something is still interfering with Aero. As said before, everything else on the system is swell! running great.
just ugly black background when selecting any Aero theme. If I go non-Aero, looks as it should - whatever desktop 'wallpaper' or color the select them has, it displays just fine. somebody that really knows how Aero is put together could likely solve this in about 10 seconds flat.

 

Run Command Prompt as administrator and paste the following, then press Enter.

Code:

regsvr32.exe /s /n /i:/UserInstall %SystemRoot%\system32\themeui.dll

If you don't receive an error message, try logging off/on and test an aero theme.
If that doesn't work, could you post any related errors (the exact wording) from Event Viewer?

 

we'll do.
the patient is at another location so it will take awhile to get back.
thank YOU.

turns out this issue plagues windows 8 & 8.1 one users perhaps more so than 7. lots of traffic on the wire about various causes and hopeful 'fixes'