Windows 7 - Aero and 3rd party themes/styles conflict

I was wondering if any one here using 3rd party themes/styles tend to get a lot of "Desktop Window Manager Has Stopped Working and Closed" errors? These errors don't have any sever effect on the system, they disable my theme and turns the windows an [opaque] light blue sometimes. They are more of a nuisance and are pretty random. Sometimes I get a few of them minutes a part or they can be several hours a part.

The problem, as I found out, is some a conflict between aero and 3rd party theme I am using. I was just wondering if any of you using 3rd party themes and styles get these errors often and have you been able to resolve them? Thanks.

Welcome to Seven Forums ColdTEK. I have never had that problem personally. It is usually do to resources, which, based on your system specs, shouldn't be an issue for you. (And thanks for filling out your specs, makes things easier). It is possible a poorly written theme could cause these problems. An out of date GPU driver could also contribute.

Have you been able to find any pattern to these occurrences? Always when doing intensive operations? Multiple apps open at once, etc.? I have had my system go to the basic Aero theme once or twice, but a quick restart of Explorer.exe fixed that. Your event logs may lend a clue.

A Guy

Hey thanks for your response A Guy. I ran Troubleshooting in the control panel(Appearance and Personalization) and here is a screen shot of what I got.


The is current theme I am running
Browsing Visual Styles 7 on deviantART

This usually happens while I am using desktop applications. The screen will just flash and I'll get that pop up box. Also, my video card drivers are the latest ones.

Well, true or not, Windows thinks this theme doesn't support Aero. Does this happen on any other themes? Did you change the Exporerframe.dll as well? It may be worth your while to change to another theme, and see if the problem occurs there as well. If not, I'd remove the theme, restore the original Explorerframe.dll, if you've changed it, and download and try the theme again. You might try it without the Explorerframe.dll at 1st, to see if that makes a difference. If the problem returns only with this theme, then you've found the cause, even if it works fine for others. A Guy

I don't mess with Exporerframe.dll files. Today, I went the whole day without receiving these errors. As I said, they are very random. Since they have no severe impact on my system, I wouldn't worry to much about it. I just wanted to see if there was an easy fix or something I might have overlooked when installing 3rd party styles that could have been root of the problem. As annoying as this error is, at least its not BSOD :P

Thanks for your help anyways A Guy

No problem, when this occurs, a restart of Explorer.exe should correct it.

Ctrl+Shift+Esc to bring up task manager (or right click taskbar Start Task Manager)> Right click on explorer.exe and choose end process> Click on File in upper left> New Task> Type in explorer.exe and press enter.

It's also possible a restart of dwm.exe will also correct this. Same process, but substitute dwm.exe for explorer.exe

A Guy