Solved Navigation Pane Corrupted - need fix

[richard127]

Help!

My son has used Windows 7 customisation tool UX Style Core (Beta) to customise our PC. Whatever he did has changed the background colour of the Explorer Navigation Pane to black, making it unreadable. I can't correct it. Does anyone have any idea what to do to fix?

 

[Brink]

Hello Richard,

If you like, you could do a system restore using a restore point dated before this happened to undo it.

 

[richard127]

Already tried. Not sure what he did (kids!) but there are no restore points before this change!

 

[RolandJS]

What happened when Windows 7 customisation tool UX Style Core (Beta) was uninstalled, still left side black? I'm wondering if installing Classic Shell would fix this problem; and maybe after fix, remove ClassicShell...just straw-grasping.

CTL-PNL-Personalization-Window Color-[within that grey box]Item are given numerous things that can be adjusted. I've never tried adjusting left or right pane background color, but, why not experiment with it?
Make sure you SAVE the current theme [overwrite the older same name] with every measure of success.

 

[richard127]

Thanks Roland

Uninstalling UX Style did indeed leave the panel black. Tried using classic shell and under that theme the navigation pane does change back to a white background but reverts to black when returning to Aero. Basically it looks like UX Style has altered something in Aero that can't be put back from within the program. I can't see any option in the Classic Shell customisation to alter navigation panel, everything else but that.

 

[paul1149]

Go to Personalization and choose a High Contrast theme, the wilder the better. Apply. Then select Aero again, and Apply.

 

[richard127]

Thanks Paul, but that doesn't work. I need to find something that will customize the panel to reset it, I think. Tried a few things but nothing working so far.

 

[paul1149]

Darn. I thought that would do it. I guess the next thing I would do is either a SFC /SCANNOW, or try creating a new user account if that would be an acceptable solution (note: if that doesn't do it, something is wacked with the OS fundamentals rather than mere settings). Or couldn't you reinstall the customization prog and change things back?

 

[richard127]

No Paul, I think I'm screwed as none of that works. Trying to re-install the program just brings up a message saying some of its files are corrupted and aborts installation. I think my son panicked and tried god knows what to fix it. He's so stressed now that he can't remember what he did.

 

[paul1149]

Something wrong under the hood - not just in settings - would explain why the Theme shift didn't rectify the problem. SFC didn't pick anything up? Otherwise, the only other thing I would try is to manually replace explorer.exe with a known good, using a boot disk or tethering the drive to another computer. Or a repair install - after backing up data.

 

[Callender]

Not sure that it's much help but see the thread here:

http://www.sevenforums.com/customization/336693-how-change-background-color-folders-windows-7-a.html

And see colors shown in Post #30

Also note: For colour changes / theme changes - they worked fine for me by just logging off /on. Other users seem to need to reboot for changes to take effect. So try applying a theme then rebooting. Choose a basic them to test.

Worth a read: How to install 3rd party theme in Windows

So basically the fix might involve replacing explorerframe.dll with a backup copy. Note: That's a guess I'm no expert on themes as Ialways use Classic Theme myself.

 

[richard127]

Wow, OK, solved now. I had run sfc /scannow command prompt, which didn't fix the problem. However, I found and renamed explorerframe.dll to explorerframe.dll.backup and ran sfc /scannow again. It immediately told me there was a system fix pending and that I should restart my PC and run scannow again. I didn't want to reboot my PC without explorerframe.dll in-case it stopped working entirely (my nerves were getting the better of me by then). So I went back and set explorerframe.dll back to its original name. I restarted my PC anyway, as scannow had told me there was a fix pending and: lo-and-behold, Explorer was fixed and back to normal.

Much relief, and my son has been banned from PC for one month. Hopefully a lesson has been well learned.

Not recommending this to others as I'm not entirely sure what just happened for sure, but it is fixed now. Phew!

 

[richard127]

Thanks to everyone for their help and suggestions btw.