Please help me with my 3 annoying problems...

Hi guys, first off i'm running Windows 7 32bit build 7600 (full and legit version).

I'm having 3 annoying problems, the first is the "Getting Started" window that pops up everytime at the desktop straight after the welcome screen, this happens everytime when i start windows. In Windows Vista, there is an option on the bottom left to disable it so that it never shows up again. However, i can't find that option anywhere.

I did some Googling and the solutions i found don't work either, such as running the command "msconfig" and finding the service that starts the Getting Started screen, there isn't one on my list, and i went to user accounts and there's no option to disable the screen on Windows 7, but it's there on Windows XP & Vista.

So ya, that's one problem, the 2nd problem is the Pin to Start menu option, it's not there. I already looked at this topic here:

https://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials...tart-menu.html


and applied the registry patch, but it didn't work. I did some Googling and used other registry patches and they don't work either.



and the 3rd most annoying problem is the item selection highlight. When you select any icon on Windows 7, it should be highlighted, i.e the icon background should be highlighted and the default normal colour is light blue or dark blue. But on Windows 7, it's different, it's transparent and it's hard to see what items you selected, especially if you have multiple icons selected. If you don't understand what i mean by this, try select Windows Classic theme and then just select an item on your desktop or something, and the background should be dark blue. If you use an aero theme or whatever theme, it is most likely glassy and transparent.

This annoys me a bit since it's hard to see what you have selected, and it doesn't happen on XP or Vista. I tried turning transparency off and adjusted the options and it didn't change the icon background to the default colour.


So ya i'm out of ideas, if anyone could please help me with these problems i would be greatly appreciated.

Reinstall windows. If after reinstallation the situation is just the same, get your windows dvd changed. If you are using a machine with windows 7 preloaded, contact your vendor.

Arc said:

Reinstall windows. If after reinstallation the situation is just the same, get your windows dvd changed. If you are using a machine with windows 7 preloaded, contact your vendor.

uhh....reinstall Windows? I don't really think that's the best way to solve things, otherwise i would've done it already. Besides, i actually formatted my PC today and installed from fresh start......and i installed Windows 7 on my other PCs and laptops and got them working fine too.

TimStitt said:

Hi chaoscreater,

I'll start with your second problem and have a think about the others. :)

=Taskbar=
When a program is running and you left click on the program icon in the taskbar, is the 'pin to taskbar' option available? This will tell me if the dll is registered.

thanks for your reply. Yes it's available, i've already pinned a few programs to the taskbar. And i just found out something, if i try to right click on an icon, the pin to start menu is available. But if i try to right click on any folders, it's not there.

On my other PCs, this option is available even if it's a folder or a library shortcut.



Oh and for my last problem about the item select highlight, i forgot to mention that you can solve this by using a different theme. For example, you can download the theme "Infiniti" from Microsoft's website, just go to your Personalization and choose download more themes or something like that, and you will be taken to the website.

The thing is, for some reason on this PC, no matter what themes i use, the item selection is still the glassy & transparent type background, whereas on my other PCs it works fine and shows the default blue background when i select an item/icon etc....

TimStitt said:

For your first problem, I think the best way is to just disable this in the group policy.

= WELCOME CENTRE=

1. Click on the start globe
2. Open RUN
3. type 'gpedit.msc'
4. Then open the following windows
- user configuration
- administrive templates
- Windows COmponents
- windows explorer
- Do not display the welcome center at user logon
- enable

Reboot and test

thanks for the reply. I just tried that and restarted my PC, and it still popped up. I went back and look at it and i can see it's enabled.

TimStitt said:

A last thought about your 'pin' problem.....

If you hold down shift when you left click on the *.EXE (this gives you the hidden options), can you see the pin option?

AHH yes that worked, i can pin the folders to the start menu now! Great thanks a lot :)



as for my theme problem, i actually saved the theme (yes you can do that) and share them online etc. But anyway i saved it because i actually fiddled around on my other PCs when i installed Windows 7 for the very first time, and somehow i got the background highlight problem fixed and so i saved that theme as a backup and used it on 2 of my other home computers as well as my laptop, and they all work fine and show the same highlight colour and brightness/contrast or whatever......i.e they all look the same.

Just that on this particular PC, it doesn't change anything....

TimStitt said:

Whoo, so group policy is denying it and it's still appearing. Nice.

I think I'm going to get nasty on this welcome centre.

START UP FOLDER
Check the '%userprofile%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup' folder and remove any shortcuts to it.

Hmm i checked, nothing in the folder.

OPEN REGEDIT
Look at these entries for any references to the Welcome centre.
HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnce
HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnceEx

HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnce
HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnceEx
HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon

I found nothing that referenced to the Welcome Centre.

GROUP POLICY
As an extra to what we did before, check for any templates loading at startup
Group Policy
Gpedit.msc
user configuration
administrative templates
system
login
Run These Programs At User Logon
(should be blank and Not configured)

Yup, it's blank and not configured.

MSCONFIG
From the RUN box, type MSCONFIG
Choose selective startup and look on the startup tab
Look for 'welcome center' as a start up item
The program path should be something like
%windir%\system32\rundll32.exe %SystemRoot%\system32\OobeFldr.dll,ShowWelcomeCenter

I found nothing related to it.....all the list shows is C:/ProgramFiles.......and nothing starting with system32 or %windir$ etc...

LAST RESORT ONLY - UNREGISTER THE DLL
I know which dll is used for the welcome centre; but I don't know what else it does. So this is high risk! Try everything else first, back up before trying.
From an elevated command prompt
regsvr32 -u OobeFldr.dll

In regards to the highlight issue, I'm really out of ideas. You could try disabling Aero (or disable/re-enable), ensure that you have the latest drivers for your graphics card from the manufactures website (not MS update), or run the batch I gave you. Did you try an sfc /scannow?

Hmm i think i might try the unregister dll command, and see what happens. Ya i did the sfc scannow and found no errors (i wouldn't think there is any since i did a fresh format installation of Windows 7 only yesterday), and also i'm up to date with my graphics card driver, i always keep up to date with my Realtek sound drivers and ATI drivers etc and i check their websites every 2 weeks or so.


Anyway i'll try the command later and see how it goes, but what's the command to register it? In case something happens and i need to register it back again just to fix it....