Well, I'm having the same issue, here. In fact, I've been plagued by it for several months, now. I thought that, because other people seem to have the same issue, Microsoft would eventually solve this problem, so it was only a matter of time.
In the mean time, a combination of netsh winsock reset and rebooting once or twice (first time forced) would solve the problem.
But these last few days it seems to be getting worse, it's almost happening to me on a daily basis, now, and I only boot my notebook once or twice every day...
Only with me, it looks like something's a bit more messed up. If this error occurs, the layout of my Windows 7 is different. There's no more semi-transparency, everything looks different.
Sometimes, after the first reboot, the error does show up, but the transparency is OK.
Here are some screenshots:
no problem
error and no transparency
error and transparency
This error also slows down the boot-process (both the "Please wait" and the "Welcome" window take a lot longer to finish).
I tried the following "solutions", with no permanent result:
- netsh winsock reset (catalog) (seems to cause the shutdown to hang on an empty desktop, though)
- reboot
- manually set a value from 0 to 1 in the registry (don't remember exactly what that was, but it didn't change anything)
Last test (just thought of that option):
- Check if the System Event Notification Service can be set as automatic in the services (System, now, which isn't even an option in the startup-type-combo-box)
I'll try it now and let you know if this solved my problem (don't expect it to).
Wish me luck!