Lost colors and background images. Bizarre

Please see my initial reply to you. I did that first. Didn't change anything.
Checked Monitor
Changed Monitor
Updated drivers.
Checked settings.
Uninstalled IE7
Rebooted
No changes to anything visible
Reinstalled IE7
System Registry Cleaned
Tried System Restore back to January 1, 2007

Still no changes.

 

That's what I wanted to hear. It wasn't all that clear since you responded initially by rebutting the inference that the monitor could be at fault. Then you responded by saying you'd done all that. I didn't know what THAT meant so I still was wondering if you tried a substitute monitor. Now we have that settled.

Now let's go back to my original supposition, you have a hardware problem. If that be true, we can't fix it by tweaking the software.

In my initial post I stated:

Logic dictates that when you power up a monitor with the pins jammed crosswise, it is likely to damage the hardware on one end or the other.

Does your computer have a video card or is the video contained on the motherboard?

 

Oh. Gosh. I'm sorry. I'm so incredibly frustrated right now (all day) and I thought I was being clear. I'm sorry. Didn't mean to be mean about it. LOL.....

I think it's integrated. It says I have this:
Intel(R) 82845G/GL/GE/PE/GV Graphics Controller

Is that the right thing? Or am I looking for something completely different? If that's the right one, then it says its working properly.

 

No, that won't tell us if it's integrated or not.

Since we seem to have exhausted all the software possibilities for the moment, let's see what kind of hardware you are using.

Give me the make and model of that beast and let's see what we can find out about its layout.

 

Dell Dimension 2400

Heres more:
Pent 4 CPU 2.66 GHZ
512 Ram
Win XP Pro (oops..thought I was on Home)
Ver. 2002
SP2



I'm about to leave for the weekend but any suggestions you can offer over the weekend I'll be sure to try on Monday!!!
Thanks so much!!!!

 

OK, have a nice weekend. I'll check it out and post up anything relevant.

BTW, can you check for a Dell service tag # before you get away?

 

It looks like you've hit the door already! The tag # isn't all that important since I've found that the video is definitely integrated. Not only that, there is no AGP slot for a video card on that MOBO. If the integrated video chip is damaged, you have a boat anchor there.

The fact that Windows reports that the video is working correctly doesn't always have the last word. The output stage can be damaged and it won't affect the Windows diagnostics. As an example, your sound card diagnostics may say your audio system is performing normally but if the speakers aren't plugged in you won't hear anything. The final output stage escapes the diagnostics.

So, if someone doesn't come up with a better solution, I would recommend that you backup all of your important personal data to separate media and then do a clean install of XP. If it still has the problem, you'll know it's a boat anchor for sure.

If you're not all that in to fooling with the thing, have the company get you a new computer. This one wasn't really designed for business use anyway. Don't mention that if your purchasing agent is related to the boss though.

 

Try logging onto XP's built in administrator account and see if it act the same there. http://windowsxp.mvps.org/admins.htm

I have to say though, your pics seem to indicate that it's an accessibilty thing although I would think that system restore would fix that. Still......

 

I *am* the administrator. So that function is invalid for me, unfortunately

I tried System Restore 17 times - picking various dates all the way back to January 1st. Still wouldn't work.


I don't think its a system wide thing. It's a setting somewhere. I just cant figure out where. If push comes to shove, I guess I'll have to reinstall XP because this is really annoying.

If anyone can figure out anything I haven't tried, please let me know!!! I appreciate all suggestions!!!

You guys ROCK!

 

Hi pitadiva,

The official Administrator account is different than yourself who may be a user or the only account with admin privileges. It may also be worth adding or making an additional new user account with admin rights and try this account.

If you can't fight the white background how about double checking to see if you can override it....
Check to make sure your theme styles function works. If you do check the option, in "accessibility ", to ignore website colors and, in "colors ", uncheck use windows colors. Then manually select or change the background color, does the change reflect the color you choose? For example, doing this myself, I can make the background white, such as yours, or blue, red, green, grey etc. IE webpage background reflects whatever color I choose to set it to.

I see your using xp theme. Have you tried changing theme to classic temporarily, just to see if this has any effect?

Grasping at a straw......
http://windowsxp.mvps.org/useraccbg.htm
As suggested from ^above link^ register these buggers:

regsvr32 themeui.dll
regsvr32 /i mshtml.dll

 

Now THIS is weird.

So.... I went to the main log in screen, tried to get the system admin screen to pull up. No luck. So for S&G's, I went and activated my GUEST account. So here I sit, from my GUEST account and typing this to you. Guess what? ALL of my settings are here. Every single one of them. The backgrounds are fixed in the Guest account.

So what exactly is the problem?

 

Tried that. Didn't work. But haven't tried creating a new admin account yet.

As I type this, my background is pink. lol. I can manually change it.

Yes. Then checked "use window colors again" and unchecked the ignore button. No such luck.

It let me register themeui.dll and it said "mshtml.dll was loaded, but the DllRegisterServer entry point was not found. This file can not be registered. "

?????????????

 

Hi again,
Ignore and discontinue self registering of mshtml.dll. Apparently IE7 has made some changes that complicate this. I haven't finished reading up on this myself, so further comment will have to wait.

Will get back to this post as time permits.

 

I did that this morning. Nothing changed. so sad.

REALLY frustrated at this point. I'm wondering if I create a brand new admin login if that will just fix it and then I can delete this one? It's a major hassle, but it beats reinstalling XP.

Any suggestions?

 

Thank you, Goddez!

 

Hi again Pitadiva,

My opinion is that a new account will not suffer from your current account problem. The fact that the guest account did not have the same problem would also suggest that this theory would be correct. In any case creating a new account should be a quick enough thing to do or undo should this need to done.

I do, however, have another idea for your current account which you may wish to check out. It involves looking into your registry and possibly making an edit. I'd like you to make sure that the string Use_DlgBox_Colors with a value of yes exists in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main.
To do so....

1. Click Start, and then click Run.
2. In the Open text box, type regedit, and then click OK.
3. In Registry Editor, open HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main.
4. In the right pane, right-click Use_DlgBox_Colors, and then click Delete.
5. In the left pane, click HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main.
6. On the Edit menu, point to New, and then click String Value.
7. In the right pane, name the new string Use_DlgBox_Colors, and then press ENTER.
8. Double-click the Use_DlgBox_Colors.
9. In the Value Data text box, type yes, and then press ENTER.
10. Click Exit on the Registry menu to quit Registry Editor.
11. Start Internet Explorer. (If it is already running, quit the program, and then restart it.)

WARNING: If you use Registry Editor incorrectly, you may cause serious problems that may require you to reinstall your operating system. Microsoft cannot guarantee that you can solve problems that result from using Registry Editor incorrectly. Use Registry Editor at your own risk. Please make sure you either backup this hkey by exporting it to a safe place, or at least set a manual restore point, reliable only if you have no issues with "system restore ".

Another idea is to double check your IE security settings and make sure they are not set to high. You may be disabling the components needed for website background and font loading. (not sure what that is myself but a default setting in each zone can't hurt to much).

If checking registry for settings you may as look for these also:NOTE these are my own from a reg export
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Settings]
"Anchor Color Visited "= "128,0,128 "
"Anchor Color "= "0,0,255 "
"Background Color "= "192,192,192 "
"Text Color "= "0,0,0 "
"Use Anchor Hover Color "= "no "
"Always Use My Colors "=dword:00000000
"Always Use My Font Face "=dword:00000000
"Always Use My Font Size "=dword:00000000
"Anchor Color Hover "= "255,0,0 "
"Custom Colors "=hex:00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00

And

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Styles]
"User Stylesheet "=" "
"Use My Stylesheet "=dword:00000000

The above is just for a looksee not a copyNpaste regpatch. I have not corrected any misplaced lines or blank spaces which may have been caused by bbs board pasting of data.

These or something very similar should be what you have. Provided you have made sure you are still not overriding them via IE's accessibility and color settings and are still not reading this on a pink background.

 

Thank you Goddez! I am familiar with RegEdit, since i had to cure some viruses in there before when we had a lady who liked to surf. Anyway, I checked it, and it said YES, so I deleted it and redid it but still no dice.

LOL! no, I changed the background color back to "use window colors" after the test yesterday. I did check all your settings against mine and with the exception of the BACKGROUND listed above, mine were the same. My background had a 255 number in it, so I changed it to yours and still nothing.

bah. stupid freaking machine. grrrrrr. I even bought and ran RegCure on Friday and still that did nothing. *sigh* Was too busy to try a new admin login, so I guess I'll try that shortly. Although I was trying to avoid it.



UPDATE: Created a new admin log in (from where I sit currently typing this), however, I noticed this popped up in Notepad with the word DESKTOP as a file name:

What does that mean?


All of my settings on this current admin login seem to work fine thus far. So I'm still perplexed as to what this new "error" is and why my old admin is so scroo-ee.

 

I really wish I could find away around having to create a new admin login. I can't access any files or programs from that login to my current one so I'd have to move everything and back it up so I can delete this user. And I'm concerned about that desktop error.

Has anyone come up with any other solutions I can try to get my settings restored?

Thanks!!!

 

SYMPTOMS
When you start the computer, Notepad starts and one or more text documents that contain the following lines appears on the Windows desktop:[.ShellClassInfo]
LocalizedResourceName=@%SystemRoot%\system32\shell32.dll,-21787


CAUSE
This behavior may occur if the following conditions are true: "¢ A Desktop.ini file exists in one or more of the following folders, where drive is the drive on which Windows is installed: "¢ drive:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\Startup
• drive:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs
• drive:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu
-and-
• The Desktop.ini file contains the following lines:[.ShellClassInfo]
LocalizedResourceName=@%SystemRoot%\system32\shell32.dll,-21787

Fix [resolution] is inside the ms link provided below:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/330132

Make sure you are able to see all hidden files and extensions (View tab
in Folder Options). In XP, there are four checkboxes to deal with:

a. Check "Display the contents of system folders ".
b. Check "Show hidden files and folders ".
c. Uncheck "Hide extensions for known file types ".
d. Uncheck "Hide protected operating system files" and click "OK" to the
dialog box.

-----------------
Will get back to you on the new account issue. My wireless connection is having issues and has become unreliable and fussy. Connection loss occurs sporadically and continuously. Therefore I want to at least get this part posted before I face my next battle with this blasted thing.