How can I prevent Windows from disabling Aero?
Jordan, what model of graphics card are you using, and what version(s) of the drivers have you been on while the problem has been happening?
The design of this site is such that I can't leave any information unless I provide it in the answer box as I don't have 50 reputation yet, but I'm having a similar problem with a VERY powerful system.
I don't remember the disabling happening for the first year or so I had the PC, which equates to two things in my mind, I hadn't added the 2nd graphics card then, and ATi's drivers were...less mature (not that that's a good thing). I haven't changed anything else about my system in that time, other than updates to common software products.
Specs that matter:
- 2x HD 5870 in Crossfire (2GB dedicated video memory)
- i7 920 @ 3.6 GHz on H20
- 12GB DDR3 @ 1443 MHz
- Antec CP-850 PSU
- Windows 7 Professional
I've checked CPU-Z, Hardware Monitor, CoreTemp my voltages and temperatures are near spot on...even my Corsair 750 Professional Gold isn't as close to perfect at load. I want this to be completely software related so badly, but considering I can't reproduce it on a notebook with considerably less power in EVERY way, I'm starting to think it's possibly related to a hardware configuration.
On the software side of things, I'm used to Aero disabling for games/programs that call the service to stop, then re-enable it after. I'm having problems with Aero disabling itself while using something as simple as Mozilla Firefox or VLC video player, which have had no issues in the past.
Drivers, CCC software, all up to date, I've tried with both Windows and ATi software set for both full eye candy and full performance, and I'm getting the same errors. It's odd that I can run a game like Metro 2033 at 5760x1080 with no artifacts, glitches, with Aero still on in the background, then I open one Firefox window or VLC window, and that dreaded yellow exclamation point comes up and I lose Aero immediately.
One thing I found very helpful in my quest to fix this annoyance is this little tidbit. Open your registry, find the following location (you create the Restart Aero and Command folder).
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\Background\shell\Restart Aero\Command
Create a new string in the Command folder, and leave it named (Default), then under Data, type the following:
CMD /C NET STOP UXSMS & NET START UXSMS
That adds the option to Restart Aero to the right click context menu when you're on the desktop. So now instead of opening up a CMD window to re-enable it, you can just right click and click. I created an executable file that just runs the same command as well, but I find this to work even better.
Hopefully this satisfies the answer portion in some way!
Throwing this is since I've been suffering from this for awhile now.
I do web development and use four monitors powered by an ATI 6900 and an ATI 6800. In other words, yes, my machine's specs are adequate, and yes, my drivers are up to date.
I keep getting slapped down to the Basic theme on a regular basis. It's annoying enough that I am seriously considering ditching Windows for good.
After searching long and wide for a solution to simply disable the automatic switch to basic theme (seriously MS? why is this not an option?) I resigned that MS simply refused to allow users to do this.
I dug a little deeper.
Since I use Chrome ~95% of the time I'm working, and I noticed that most of the auto theme switching BS was being triggered by a web page making use of CSS3 stuff, I took a gander at:
chrome://flags
There's a handful of items in here not available in the standard settings panel. One of which:
GPU Accelerated SVG and CSS Filters Mac, Windows, Linux, Chrome OS
Use the GPU to accelerate rendering of SVG and CSS filters.
Hmm... so I gave it a shot and turned it on. The page at http://daneden.me/animate/ (clicking a few of these would cause the theme to switch to basic after about 30 seconds) is my benchmark. I've been clicking buttons on there for 5-10 minutes and I'm not getting the auto theme switch glitch (yet).
So while this is certainly not a solution, it may provide some relief of symptoms and additional insight in case someone out there is talented enough to fix MS's bugs for them.
It is a bug in WebEx (see http://lonesysadmin.net/2010/01/15/webex-aero/).
I have had the same trouble with Teamviewer and they put an option in to prevent this if you are hosting a session and the session is configured for automatic quality (http://en.kioskea.net/faq/30490-teamviewer-disable-aero-color-scheme-when-using-automatic-quality).