Nope, tried disabling all the fancy animations and even went back to classic desktop settings, didn't work. Also tried stopping the themes process under "services.msc" - unfortunately does not help. Thanks for the suggestion though.
What I have found though is that the functionality of the "file open" window is still working. I can use tab and the arrow keys to navigate, and then select a file to open - which it does - unfortunately I cannot see which file I am selecting! Frustrating...
Thanks for the suggestions so far, if any one does have a bright idea, let me know, but otherwise it feels as though I must either go back to XP

, or else just live with it as is.