Solved Classic theme and windows explorer problems

[oredaze]

Good day,
with windows 7 when I switch to classic theme, after a while, every windows explorer related window that I try to open, like "Personalize" or Control Panel or windows explorer itself just wont open. It stays in the initiating phase where you can see only the window border and hangs... forever, and it's hard to "end task" too. This causes me troubles when I try to switch to windows basic or aero. But the main problem is not that I can't revert from classic theme, but that I WANT to use classic theme, and have a functional windows OS at the same time.

This has plagued me for years, it's not a virus related issue nor something else. It happens on fresh win install. It's a windows bug. I have never been able to use classic theme because of this. Also I could not find any fix from google at all. There is an official bug thread from microsoft recognising this issue, but they just tell you how to switch from classic theme to something else.

I don't expect a fix for this, but might ass well ask for one, thanks.

 

[Lee]

Two things come to mind:

1. Do a Recovery to see if you can fix the problem. Just remember if you do a Recovery you may have to reinstall some programs.

2. Restart and go into "Safe Mode - F8" to see if you can change into Aero, or Windows & Basic.

Good Luck and Welcome to the Seven Forums. . .

 

[oredaze]

There is no point to do a recovery, as I said I have this problem on a fresh win install as well.

And it appears it doesn't work under safe mode either.

 

[A Guy]

I know you say it happened on a fresh install, but try running the System File Checker and see if it finds any issues

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/1538-sfc-scannow-command-system-file-checker.html

Also, fill in your system specs so everyone can see what we are working with

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/180324-system-info-see-your-system-specs.html

Yours is not a common problem, so it may be hardware related. A Guy

 

[oredaze]

It may indeed be hardware related, I'm gonna fiddle with SFC /SCANNOW , for now here are my specs:
Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU E4600 @ 2.40GHz
4GB RAM
ATI Radeon HD 4770 with catalyst 12.6 (newer versions brake photoshop)
Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate 32-bit 7601 Multiprocessor Free Service Pack 1

 

[oredaze]

Ok, so I ran SFC /SCANNOW and it showed in the log a few "corrupted" files. It turns out the culprit was ExplorerFrame.dll and/or shellstyle.dll which I had manually modified to make a few very nice changes to windows explorer (tighter font spacing between rows and removing that "Organize..." band below the location bar) which really annoys me, and I do this always after I install windows with no problems... not while I am using basic or aero theme anyways.
After I copied original files from the Win DVD, now explorer works with classic theme.

So I have to choose if I wanna use classic theme or have the nice changes to windows explorer. Oh well....
Anyway thanks, the issue is kinda solved.

By the way I think I used a tutorial from this forum to make the changes to ExplorerFrame.dll and shellstyle.dll...

 

[A Guy]

Interesting. SFC actually just flagged both as they were not original, but that led you to discover what the cause was. People have certainly modified those files with no issues, but most would not be using the classic theme then

A Guy