Windows XP theme (visual styles) keeps resetting itself after reboot

[sisq0kidd]

Alright guys, this problem has been bugging me for about a week now.

I've had my Windows XP theme set to classic for years now. About 1 week ago, every time I restart my computer, Windows seems to think that I want a mixture of classic and the ugly XP theme. My taskbar and buttons all look XP, but when I right click, it's classic.

Any help is appreciated. I assume it might be something with the XP updates.

 

[bwatson283]

Microsoft!

 

[evilspoons]

I know I've just resurrected an ancient thread, but I've been having exactly the same problem with XP SP3 in a virtual machine. I had the "Windows Classic" theme selected (looked like Windows 2000) for a long time, it worked fine, and then I went and changed the hard drive layout. I changed the boot drive from IDE channel 1 device 1 aka slave (I have no idea why VMWare put it there by default...) to IDE channel 0 device 0 aka master, then I added two more virtual hard drives on IDE channel 1, device 0 and device 1.

My virtual machine started doing exactly the same thing. Every reboot, ugly Windows XP blue and green start menus combined with Windows 2000 right click menus and colour scheme. Ughh. I haven't found an answer anywhere else either.

 

[HOSED]

Just curious are you using one of the workarounds to get MS system updates? Maybe an update caused this. I would try using system restore to roll back and see if that helps.

 

[evilspoons]

Actually, no. The VM hasn't installed any updates in a while and I have a bunch of snapshots I can roll back to. If I go back to before rearranging the hard drives, the themes are fine [and no windows updates are offered]. Post hard drive rearrangement, everything's screwy. Makes no sense to me.

 

[HOSED]

If no one has a better idea maybe you could set up a new user id and login with it to test.

 

[code65536]

If no one has a better idea maybe you could set up a new user id and login with it to test.

Yes, the profile was probably messed up somehow.

It's also possible that, though the different rearrangements of the partitions, the profile location (if it was keyed to a specific partition ID) may no longer be valid, and Windows is thus loading default profile settings because it can no longer "see" the profile.

In either case, a fresh new profile is the easiest solution.

 

[fire400]

could be a bug in the install process with your specific hardware/vm setup

i've used images SP0, SP1, SP2, SP3, originals and sata slips and SP slips of nearly every kind... and they all seem to crash with certain kinds of hardware, install differently, never ever getting the exact same prompts for fresh installs on various hardware.

basically, i've boiled it down to exact slipstreaming. i don't like pre-registries on installs 'cuz of the fragility of windows XP installations, but if all else, you may have to either rebuild your hard drive configuration, use a different set of install media or tweak the OS at best.

 

[mikeymikec]

The only times I've encountered this was if the HDD was dying (aka. code65536's post "hosed profile"). I'm not saying "it's always caused by that", btw.

In any case I'd expect to find entries in eventvwr > application log regarding problems saving the user profile.