Strange Behaviour - no close, minimize, expand function on startup

[Ben]

Hey guys,
I recently installed Beta 1 on my MacBook, applied the patches for removing the "Send Feedback", the watermark and the timebomb stopper.
However, after doing so, upon starting Windows, I am unable to use Close, Minimize and Expand functions on windows. Wether I am in Explorer or in an application (IE, Windows Live Messenger, WMP, etc. all do it).
The strange thing is, if I go to run and start regedit, all is well again.

For the life of me, I cannot figure out what's going on.

I've done some Googling on the issue, and it seems people have had this issue in previous builds after applying similar patches, but every forum result that I find, the thread is closed and the OP told to do a search as it's been covered.

So if anyone here knows what's going on, I'd appreciate some help.

Regards,
Ben.

 

[johngalt]

As for the time bomb stopper, I'd not apply that tweak - you can easily reset it for 90 additional days, and the 'real' Beta is due out well before 120 days - so that may be the problem.

If not, then obviously something else is. Did you perform each tweak independently (as in apply 1 tweak, then reboot, then apply next, etc?) If so, you might be able to reverse the one tweak - if not, try a very recent system restore to see what happens.

**Warning** - I have used none of these tweaks, and thus I am not responsible if the OS goes FUBAR from some SNAFU. In particular, a SR may render the OS unbootable - but I suspect you're not *too* worried about that, are ya?

 

[Ben]

I applied the Send Feedback one first, then the Watermark directly after. I noticed it after these two, and I then applied the timebomb stopper after that.

If anything, I'd suspect that the Send Feedback is the culprit.

 

[johngalt]

Oh, wait, of course.

If you open any dialog box in W7 to the left of the close button is a Send Feedback link - that is defiitely the culprit, sorry, I had a brain fart.

 

[Ben]

Ah ok. But why is it that everyone else isn't having the issue? Is there a file that the registry edit affects when you remove the Send Feedback link?

 

[johngalt]

I suppose what happens is that the registry edit does is remove the Send Feedback from *everywhere* - an thus it 'hides' the close button when in fact I suspect it is actually there just not rendering correctly.

Again, just stabbing in the dark cause I don't use the tweak myself.

 

[Ben]

Fair enough. I guess it won't kill me to have it there.

Also, while I'm being picky about W7 behaviour, every now and again, some dialog boxes will show and have no text on the buttons (OK, Cancel, etc.)
I can't see how any of the tweaks would have caused this one, so if anyone knows what's caused this, a solution would be appreciated.

Cheers.

 

[darkassain]

im guessing you already applied your drivers from the (leopard?)(ive been behind the times since i abandoned OSx86...lol) disc???

 

[Ben]

Yeah, that was the first thing that I did.

Windows picked up the GeForce 9400M right away anyway, but I installed all the drivers just to be sure.

 

[johngalt]

Hmmm, is it random, or application specific?

I had issues with Fx and Tb on one of the previous builds at completely random times....

 

[Ben]

Seems to be random. It's happened in IE, Winamp, WLM, and application installers (.msi and others) so far.

 

[johngalt]

minimizing (those that can be minimized) does not help?

Try hitting Win + D (of course, make sure you use the Right key mapped to Windows key ) to minimize all windows, and then bringing it back up and see if it renders correctly - if so, you may have graphics issues....

 

[Ben]

No worries. Next time it does it, I'll let you know what happens.

Thanks

 

[johngalt]

Screen caps would be helpful - especially if You can get multiple apps opening and show some apps hosed whilst others are not.

 

[Ben]

Yeah, I'll try do that too

 

[Ben]

Ok, I have come to the conclusion hat it's totally intermittent.
I just got a dialog in WLM (where it had once or twice previously shown no button text), and the buttons are showing correctly.

 

[johngalt]

Hmmm - then it has to be related to something else....

How are the temps on the machine?

 

[Ben]

Here's a picture of when it doesn't display button texts.

Machine temperature is average (for a notebook) it seems.
GPU: 52 Celsius
HDD: 35 Celsius
Core 0: 49 Celsius
Core 1: 51 Celsius

 

[johngalt]

Something ain't right.

Also, try to capture some time in the future where you have both text on buttons and no text on buttons - if that never happens, then I'd say it was most likely a hardware issue, but i you get mixed then I'd say it was software....

Oh, is your AV / Windows Defender going absolutely crazy when this happens? Could be that the system forgets to paste button text b/c of HD activity, but the Mac has the mouse at a lower IRQ and thus when you click the button it overrides the HD activity....

Again, I ma taking shots in the dark here - I haven't tried W7 on a Mac yet so I cannot say one way or another wth is really going on here.

 

[Ben]

There's never a case where there's one button with and one without in a windows.
Windows Defender is turned off, and no other AV is installed. I tend not to run any when testing beta OSes.

To me, it does seem more like a software issue, as I've never had anything similar on OS X, nor when I was running XP Pro SP3 on the same machine.