Windows 7 - window Flicker (Not screen) poor mouse response (Aero?)

Try giving this a shot:

SFC /SCANNOW Command - System File Checker

Thanks F5ing,

I had already tried that one a couple of times. It found one corrupt mouse pointer which I deleted.

No joy I'm afraid.

Man, you've got a boatload of apps installed. What's not needed?

Hi F5ing,

I normally shut most of them down from start up, but they are still in the start up list. I made a bunch run in start up when I did the CCLean save to txt file to show the system running with most of the apps.

Most get installed with various software and it is easier to turn them off in start up than to uninstall the whole program. I used to uninstall them completely then found I needed to run the app for something, so figured it better to just stop them starting automatically to save resources. This laptop has 8GB of RAM and two processors, so it doesn't appear to slow down with a lot of little apps running.

I've tried starting with nothing in start up and it still does the "not responding" window flash. I think something changed in one of the Windows updates, but that is only a guess. As I said in a previous post, turning off the Window Desktop Manager stops the problem, but I'd like to have Aero back if it is possible.

In Msconfig, there is a list of services. (I'm guessing these load before the start up programs) I suppose the next step might be to turn some of those off as well as the start up programs and see if that fixes it. I'll just have to ensure I don't shut anything vital down, or I will have no end of fun trying to get the system back. Hence why I haven't tried that yet.

Well I was just referring to your installed apps list that you posted. Pretty large list, and if any have associated services that start with the machine, then at a minimum they are monitoring in order to perform some service when needed.

I'd go through the list of installed apps and uninstall the stuff you don't ever use. After doing that then it would be time to go through the list of services.

Hi karlsnooks,

I'm sorry you feel that way, but fair enough. Thanks for the help you did provide, it kept me searching.......

Just in case anyone else runs into this problem, I seemed to have found something that works other than turning off Windows Desktop Manager. I found a link to this post buried in one of the MicroSoft Answers threads here's the link to the post with the fix:

http://www.mydigitallife.info/fix-windows-7-screen-flashes-to-desktop-with-not-responding-error/comment-page-1/#comment-902397

Here's what it says:

Windows 7 may occasionally display a symptom where the screen flashes after user optimizes the computer shutdown speed. The symptom happens whenever user selects a folder or browses to new web page, the desktop which supposed to be in the background will jump or bring to front – flash out for a while, and the “Not Responding” error message will display on the top left corner.

The problem is probably due to optimisation to increase PC shutdown speed and decrease time required to shut down the computer. The change can be used by Windows optimization utility or technical user who modifies the registry manually. When the setting is changed, Windows 7 may encounter lack of buffer time or other slowness.

To fix the screen flashing issue, follow steps below.
Run Registry Editor, and then delete the following registry keys


HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop\HungAppTimeOut
HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop\WaitToKillAppTimeOut
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\HungAppTimeOut
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\WaitToKillAppTimeOut
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\WaitToKillServiceTimeOut

Restart the computer after deletion, and the screen flashing issue on Windows 7 should be fixed.[

Further down the page someone added a bit more:

Catherine
]January 25, 2011 at 2:50 pm
This solution worked for me too – after days and days of looking at other resources. I did not find HKEY_USERS.DEFAULTControl PanelDesktopHungAppTimeOut or HKEY_USERS.DEFAULTControl PanelDesktopWaitToKillAppTimeOut but I did find the other two under HKEY_CURRENT_USERControl PanelDesktop. The last one I found in two places under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMControlSet001Control and ControlSet002Control – I had to run a search to find them.

*** Note: the first time I tried this I didn't search the registry properly. You need to search on the last part of those lines to find the registry entries. Eg. search on "HungAppTimeOut" not "HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop\HungAppTimeOut". Might seem obvious to most people but I've not touched REGEDIT very much.

Also check that you have the right part of the registry tree before you delete anything. Repeat the searches for the other strings and you should find them all.

So far so good, no flashing windows and no "not responding" messages.

Thanks to everyone who helped. My IT department wouldn't which was why I came here. So thanks again.

Thanks for posting what you've found. Please post again after some run time to let us know how successful it turns out in solving your original problem, as well as any other changes to expected behavior.

Had you done any shutdown optimization?

Hi F5ing,

I've trimmed down the startup programs to the minimum, but it still worked with everything on (testing). So far so good. (touch wood)

Sound good. I'll touch wood on my end for ya!