Windows Live Essentials Render Black

Hello. I have recently been working on a project to create a Linux computer which seamlessly operates with a Windows 7 VM. This is to give myself all of the advantages of a modern computer+Windows 7. Essentially I'm combining my two favorite operating systems of all time, Debian Linux and Windows 7.

As a part of the experience, I want to include Windows Live Essentials (2011). I'll probably only end up really using a few of the programs included, but want have the option of using any program in the pack for nostalgia purposes. I plan on patching Windows Live Messenger with the Escargot patch for example.

All was going well and good with my initial tests, and everything was working fine. Once I had finally set up the VM I would be using however, things took a snag.

Here is the process I took, and I am unsure where things went wrong (though I have my suspicions):
- My first tests were conducted with an old Windows 7 Professional copy I had lying around. I simply installed it into a VM and got everything working. WLE worked exactly as expected, Microsoft Office 2010 worked as expected, as far as I could tell everything was right.

- I then updated the VM to the latest available patch using Legacy Update. I did not check if Windows Live Essentials still worked after doing so, though I probably should have.

- I then acquired a copy of Windows 7 Ultimate x64 for the finalized VM, after I had conducted tests. I installed it into a new VM and got to updating it to the latest available patch.

- I got everything working for seamless use with Debian. I did a few changes to the VM to make sure it was a nice experience:
- I installed VirtualBox guest additions and enabled Windows 7 Aero.
- I changed a single performance setting: I disabled shadows for windows. This removed some undesired seams when VirtualBox was running in seamless mode.

- I then went about installing WLE. This is where things went wrong. Everything installed correctly, but when opening any program from the pack I am met with some rendered components but mostly a black window.

Examples:


Has anyone ever seen something like this before?
I launched the VM under a windows host and in a non-seamless mode to confirm that it was not my Linux host or seamless mode which was causing the issue. The only resources I can find online are old microsoft.com posts which give a solution which do not apply to a new installation. Just in case, I tried it anyway, it was to check the windows file integrity, but no errors were found.

I would be grateful for any assistance anyone might provide. Thank you.

- - - Updated - - -

Addendum: these things should not mater but including them in case there's something I'm not aware of:
- I installed Microsoft Security Essentials on the VM. It is working as expected with no issues.
- I skinned my browser with rinFox, so it looks like IE8. I did the work for this on the VM itself, so installed the utility application "Resource Hacker" to skin the firefox.exe file.
- I installed ConEmu (x64) and patched its .exe file to appear as if it were cmd using Resource Hacker.
- I added and then included in the PATH variable fastfetch.

All work listed above was done before attempting to install WLE.

- - - Updated - - -

Update: I went back to the professional VM. I don't have a backup of that vm in the fully updated state, but I did have a backup of it in an earlier state.

WLE works just fine there.

Will update more after more experiments. Done for today though.