Aero stops working, won't work again until restart

[Fangs McWolf]

Can't quite nail down when this happens but from time to time the Aero effects will stop working. So far it does seem to happen if the screen has been blank for awhile (screen saver) but something else has to happen as well because that by itself doesn't cause the issue. This last time it happened when I turned on my TV to HDMI which in turn causes the screens to flash as the 'new monitor' is added and my desktop is extended. I do like that it dynamically extends (or reduces) based on an active signal (yay).

What happens is the glass effect disappears and the taskbar becomes a greyish color. If I run the troubleshooter with the autofix, it will sometimes fix the issue for a second but then it reverts back to the problem. I've tried killing dwm.exe and doing the net stop/start uxsms, but that might work for 5 seconds before it reverts again.

For some reason, 7 is determined that it can't work, even though it can and does (for a few seconds). If I restart the computer, it works just fine again. But would be nice to not have to restart the computer each and every time it happens.

I do keep up to date on my drivers so that's not an issue, although I may be contacting Nvidia to see if the screen flashing (blanks out) can be stopped as that gets annoying. I'm not sure if it's a 7 or Nvidia issue, but if it's possible to have the screens not blank out when a monitor adds/drops, then they can likely fix it.

Thanks in advance.

 

[suland]

That is exactly the same thing happening to me. 7-64-Ultimate. Anyone knows anything about it?

 

[Fangs McWolf]

To give an update on this...
The Windows Aero feature may be disabled when you have a graphics card that uses system memory to augment dedicated video memory on a Windows Vista-based computer

My M3N78-EM has built on video and I use that to connect the TV via HDMI and the problem does seem to happen when I enable the HDMI. I upped the memory allocated from 256mb to 512mb and it happened again within a few minutes after I restarted the computer but interestingly enough when I did the net stop/start, it sticked with the Aero effects.

The above link is for Vista but I would like to think that there's some way to force Windows 7 to not disable Aero once it's active and working (or at least give you the ability to force it to enable to stay enabled for that session). Personally I think it's way to sensitive to the point of being trigger happy for disabling Aero effects.

I don't consider this matter resolved at this point, but hopefully this additional information will help in finding a solution.

 

[Fangs McWolf]

Okay I think that Windows 7 has an issue with not realizing that it has enough memory to continue using Aero. It's already started switching from Aero to Basic despite there being plenty of memory available. I believe the problem is that (from what it seems) it isn't taking multiple displays into account properly when it's deciding if there's enough memory or not. Out of 5gigs of ram, with 512mb set aside for the onboard video (had it at 256mb), that still leaves 1.7gig of available ram. I can understand warning a person about coming close to running out of memory, but when I still have about a gig left (80% in use) and it's warning me that I'm running low on system memory and to close some programs, that's a bit sad. Is it telling me that if I had 2 gigs of ram and was down to 1gig (50%) that I should close some programs? If not then it needs to shut up.

A way to either prevent it from switching to Basic or to increase its tolerance would probably resolve this issue. Any ideas?

 

[pcs3657]

Enable Aero Snap and Aero Shake

1. Click Start, type dock in the Search box.
2. Click Turn off automatic window arrangement in search results

3. Uncheck the following option:
Prevent windows from being automatically arranged when moved to the edge of the screen

4. Click OK and then close the Control Panel.
This enables Aero Snap and Aero Shake features. If the "Shake" feature still doesn’t work, you may need to check if it’s been disabled by a Policy setting, just in case if someone may have enabled the setting via the registry or using a third-party program.
Disabling the Aero Shake Policy Setting

Using the Registry Editor
1. Click Start, type Regedit.exe and press {ENTER}
2. Navigate to the following branch:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Policies \ Microsoft \ Windows \ Explorer
3. Delete the value named NoWindowMinimizingShortcuts
4. Exit the Registry Editor.
5. Logoff and login back.
Using the Group Policy Editor
Before you proceed, understand that the Group Policy Editor is only available in Professional, Ultimate, and Enterprise Editions of Windows 7.
1. Click Start, type gpedit.msc and press {ENTER}
2. Go to the following branch:
User Configuration | Administrative Templates | Desktop
3. Double-click Turn off Aero Shake window minimizing mouse gesture
4. Set it to Disabled, and click Apply
5. Set it to Not configured, and click OK
6. Exit the Group Policy Editor.
7. Logoff and login back.