CZroe
Lifer
I recently installed WinXP Pro on my friends freshly formatted HD.
The first thing I did after installing was go to www.windowsupdate.com and install all critical updates/application compatibility updates. Then I installed the latest (last) official Voodoo3 Win2k driver because he needed better OpenGL support than the default XP driver provided by Microsoft.
After restarting from the driver installation, the default theme had somehow become seriously screwed, as if it had half-way reverted to the "Windows Classic" theme.
Buttons (Close, Min, Max, etc...) were tiny, with huge gaps in between as if they were still the large WinXP style buttons. The start menu was still arranged in XP style, but the user picture was gone and it had those sick looking 9x/NT/2k colors.
Also, the current wallpaper was totally deleted from the hard drive! After removing and readding the wallpaper windows component, and allowing Windows to copy the files from the CD-ROM, the wallpaper still was not in the list of wallpaper under display properties!
I had nothing to blame but the Voodoo3 Win2k drivers for that one.
He wanted to stick with the Windows Classic theme anyway (afraid to try something new I guess) so we just let it go.
Anyway, I upgraded my laptop to WinXP Pro and just recently experienced a very similar problem!
BTW, as a power user, I generally look down on those who still get their kicks from lame-ass themes and screen savers.
Recently, someone asked me how to revert to the "Windows Classic" theme. I had my laptop with me, so I tried showing him. I went into Display Properties, and chose "Windows Classic" from the drop-down combo on the Themes tab. After clicking "Apply," I went to change my wallpaper back to the slick-looking Windows XP background (the blue XP Pro version, not the sick green version that comes with XP Home Edition).
It was gone! It wasn't in the list, or anywhere on the hard drive. Reverting back to the WinXP default theme didn't bring it back, and reinstalling the wallpaper component only copied the file to the hard drive, but did not re-add it to the list of wallpaper.
Clicking "Browse" and browsing to the file wouldn't work either, it simply acted as if I had clicked Cancel on the Browse dialog. I opened the file with Windows Preview and set it as wallpaper, and it FINALLY set the wallpaper. Now the file is listed at the end of the list and is NOT in alphabetical order. Anyway, this flaw is serious because it deletes the current wallpaper image from the HD. A user could lose a valuable personalized image if it has not been backed up.
Anyone else experience this problem? I have no idea how to use the Microsoft knowledge base, can anyone help? At least I can find out if Microsoft is aware of the problem...
[edit]
Also, forgot to mention.
After forcibly setting the background to "C:\WINDOWS\Web\Wallpaper\Windows XP.jpg",
when I look at the wallpaper list under Display Properties, Windows REFUSES to display a preview of that specific image anymore.
Strange...
[/edit]
The first thing I did after installing was go to www.windowsupdate.com and install all critical updates/application compatibility updates. Then I installed the latest (last) official Voodoo3 Win2k driver because he needed better OpenGL support than the default XP driver provided by Microsoft.
After restarting from the driver installation, the default theme had somehow become seriously screwed, as if it had half-way reverted to the "Windows Classic" theme.
Buttons (Close, Min, Max, etc...) were tiny, with huge gaps in between as if they were still the large WinXP style buttons. The start menu was still arranged in XP style, but the user picture was gone and it had those sick looking 9x/NT/2k colors.
Also, the current wallpaper was totally deleted from the hard drive! After removing and readding the wallpaper windows component, and allowing Windows to copy the files from the CD-ROM, the wallpaper still was not in the list of wallpaper under display properties!
I had nothing to blame but the Voodoo3 Win2k drivers for that one.
He wanted to stick with the Windows Classic theme anyway (afraid to try something new I guess) so we just let it go.
Anyway, I upgraded my laptop to WinXP Pro and just recently experienced a very similar problem!
BTW, as a power user, I generally look down on those who still get their kicks from lame-ass themes and screen savers.
Recently, someone asked me how to revert to the "Windows Classic" theme. I had my laptop with me, so I tried showing him. I went into Display Properties, and chose "Windows Classic" from the drop-down combo on the Themes tab. After clicking "Apply," I went to change my wallpaper back to the slick-looking Windows XP background (the blue XP Pro version, not the sick green version that comes with XP Home Edition).
It was gone! It wasn't in the list, or anywhere on the hard drive. Reverting back to the WinXP default theme didn't bring it back, and reinstalling the wallpaper component only copied the file to the hard drive, but did not re-add it to the list of wallpaper.
Clicking "Browse" and browsing to the file wouldn't work either, it simply acted as if I had clicked Cancel on the Browse dialog. I opened the file with Windows Preview and set it as wallpaper, and it FINALLY set the wallpaper. Now the file is listed at the end of the list and is NOT in alphabetical order. Anyway, this flaw is serious because it deletes the current wallpaper image from the HD. A user could lose a valuable personalized image if it has not been backed up.
Anyone else experience this problem? I have no idea how to use the Microsoft knowledge base, can anyone help? At least I can find out if Microsoft is aware of the problem...
[edit]
Also, forgot to mention.
After forcibly setting the background to "C:\WINDOWS\Web\Wallpaper\Windows XP.jpg",
when I look at the wallpaper list under Display Properties, Windows REFUSES to display a preview of that specific image anymore.
Strange...
[/edit]
