Solved Washed Out Screens and Taskbar, etc...

[in2tech]

My niece has a laptop that started giving her washed out areas of the browsers, desktop, taskbar, etc... I had her go back and restore as far back as she could incase she got a virus or something weird happened with drivers etc... but it didn't fix anything. She has checked the settings in the control panel for screen settings, themes, etc... and nothing fixes it.

Please see attached images to see what I am talking about!

Any ideas? Would a complete restore help? Has someone clicked on the wrong settings somehow? She does have a 3 year old

Thanks for your help!

 

[karlsnooks]

This can be caused by a display that's worn out. I'm not saying it is. Let's try some other things.


WIN + X key combo | drag the slider in the Brightness section to the left

WIN is the key with the Microsoft flag on top.

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CONTROL PANEL | make sure that Small Icons is selected | DISPLAY
You check the Calibrate Display to see if that will help.

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CONTROL PANEL | TROUBLESHOOTING | APPEARANCE AND PERSONALIZATION | Display Quality

=========================================
General


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Open the Hardware and Devices Troubleshooter
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Windows 7_ top solutions - Help & How-to - Microsoft Windows

 

[in2tech]

Well none of those options appear to be helping. Will a complete restore back to factory default help at all, or is this possibly a hardware problem with the display?

Thanks for your help everyone!

 

[karlsnooks]

As a last restort, you can try the factory restore.

My money is on you having a hardware problem since all of the troubleshooters and fixits came up empty.

Let's hope that I'm wrong.

 

[fseal]

Well there are several possibilities there that are not hardware related.

1) Your running in a "Basic" theme which looks "washed out" by itself. No trnasparency and plain UI. To get the Aero look back, try right clicking the desktop and selecting Personalize and select an Aero theme. I know you mentioned themes but specifically try that.

2) Your IE sample there has the browser "not responding". Any time a program locks up on windows it fades out a bit. If this is the problem, and you say it happens to the task bar, does that mean the task bar does not accept mouse clicks any more? Same with firefox or other programs? (Most programs will say "Not responding" at the top but some without title bars won't).

3) That AT&T page sample is just odd in several ways. Like a browser problem. Or a virus causing browser problems.

It's possible that a virus would be causing all of this unfortunately. Or something else causing programs to crash. A bit more investigation is needed. Doubt it's a display problem but could be Virus or memory or driver issue.

 

[Bongo]

I see it is using Windows Classic theme look at this http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/282-window-color-appearance-change.html steps 7, 8 will show how to adjust the colors.

If the aero themes are not working try this
Click on rb: start button in the search box type Aero and look for Find and fix problems with transparency and check for problems

Jerry

 

[karlsnooks]

Well none of those options appear to be helping. Will a complete restore back to factory default help at all, or is this possibly a hardware problem with the display?

Thanks for your help everyone!

One of those troubleshooters:

control panel | Traoubleshooting | Appearance and Personalization | Display Quality


You indicated that you had processed the links. Did you run that troubleshooter?

 

[in2tech]

Well there are several possibilities there that are not hardware related.

1) Your running in a "Basic" theme which looks "washed out" by itself. No trnasparency and plain UI. To get the Aero look back, try right clicking the desktop and selecting Personalize and select an Aero theme. I know you mentioned themes but specifically try that.

Your the bomb fseal it was your number one suggestion. Such a simple thing causing such headaches to people. She was about to take it to Best Buy and I was begging her not too that most likely this great community would figure it out!

Here is a virtual $50.00 bill, that Best Buy would have charged if not more.

Thanks again everyone!

 

[fseal]

Woot!

Hopefully those other browser issues are not too serious

 

[in2tech]

Woot!

Hopefully those other browser issues are not too serious

She does still have the problem with IE 8 or 9 locking up but she is using FireFox right now with no issues at all. If I remember correctly it's a pain to remove IE 8 and reinstall it, but I will at sometime do this for her! For the time being we are at different households and I might try to remote connect in to her and remove and reinstall IE for her! I just can't remember off the top of my head how to remove it. I do know it's not in the Uninstall area of the Control Panel Which really kind of makes me slightly angry. It should be really easy to uninstall any browser, including Internet Explorer!

Thanks so much for the help everyone!

 

[fseal]

IE is considered a "Windows Feature" You can get rid of the IE client by going to Control Panel->Programs->Turn windows features on or off and uncheck the IE entry. The HTML engine will remain as it is used by the help and several UI components but the IE UI should be gone.

 

[dondreak]

FYI: The fix that solved it for one person is not the full fix. I have done the same thing but the problem keeps returning. Sometimes a week later, sometimes after coming out of sleep mode.

 

[lroast]

Fixed for me IE 11 / WINDOWS 7 64 bit

I was able to go to Control Panel / Appearance and Personalization / Change window glass colors / then select a darker color such as the dark blue. Now I can read the icons on the taskbar.

 

[AtticusMaximus]

Just fixed this on my own pc thanks to fseal

One thing i noticed whilst looking at my themes is that if you are using an aero theme when your ac adapter is plugged in, it will change it to the basic theme once you unplug the cable, hence the washed out colours and taskbar. If you change your theme when you battery is unplugged and set it from basic to an aero theme, and do the same when it is plugged into a charger, then your problem will be solved.

Ty for all the help guys