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Black Menu and Favorites bar in IE8

P

PA Bear [MS MVP]

Flightless Bird
Hopefully you uninstalled Stardock, yes?

L. V. Bekeris wrote:
> I had the same problem with black menu and favorate bar. After I followed
> PA
> Bear's suggestion and installed Stardock program, the problem was solved
> and
> the improvement was terrific.
>
>> Yes, I assumed that was the case.
>>
>> Try something for us. Open IE8 to this page:
>> http://www.fiddlertool.com/ua.aspx. Highlight/select all of the red text
>> at the top of the page and copy it to your keyboard. (Also scroll down to
>> see if an issue has been detected and a possible resolution offered.)
>> Open
>> a reply to this post & paste the contents of your clipboard into your
>> reply.
>>
>>
>> craigmill@sky.com wrote:
>>> Rob, PA Bear, just to clarify - I bought the notebook with XPhome
>>> installed.
>>> I only wanted a small portable pc with Internet/email via WiFi along
>>> with Word and Excel, so I have only have a base XP operating system
>>> plus officeXP.
>>>
>>> Raymond
 
C

craigmill@sky.com

Flightless Bird
PA Bear - is this what you were looking for?


Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 5.1; Trident/4.0; .NET
CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.0.04506.648; .NET CLR 3.5.21022; .NET CLR
3.0.4506.2152; .NET CLR 3.5.30729)


Your browser sent the following headers:
Connection: Keep-Alive
Content-Length: 0
Accept: image/gif, image/jpeg, image/pjpeg, image/pjpeg, application/x-
shockwave-flash, application/x-ms-application, application/x-ms-xbap,
application/vnd.ms-xpsdocument, application/xaml+xml, application/
vnd.ms-excel, application/vnd.ms-powerpoint, application/msword, */*
Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate
Accept-Language: en-gb
Host: www.fiddlertool.com
User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 5.1; Trident/
4.0; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.0.04506.648; .NET CLR
3.5.21022; .NET CLR 3.0.4506.2152; .NET CLR 3.5.30729)
X-Original-URL: /ua.aspx
 
C

craigmill@sky.com

Flightless Bird
Sorry missed this additional bit of info!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ASPNET's HTTPBrowserCapabilities object reports that, based on the
User-Agent, your Browser has the following capabilities:

Type = IE8
Name = IE
Version = 8.0
Major Version = 8
Minor Version = 0
Platform = WinXP
Is Beta = False
Is Crawler = False
Is AOL = False
Is Win16 = False
Is Win32 = True
Supports Frames = True
Supports Tables = True
Supports Cookies = True
Supports VBScript = True
Supports JavaScript = True
Supports Java Applets = True
Supports ActiveX Controls = True
 
P

PA Bear [MS MVP]

Flightless Bird
Yes. But it was a red herring: Your User Agent string has nothing to do
with the "black toolbars" issue.

craigmill@sky.com wrote:
> PA Bear - is this what you were looking for?
>
>
> Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 5.1; Trident/4.0; .NET
> CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.0.04506.648; .NET CLR 3.5.21022; .NET CLR
> 3.0.4506.2152; .NET CLR 3.5.30729)
<SNIP>
 
M

mark1950m

Flightless Bird
From what I can see this problem has been around since at least September 2008 and most people have concluded that it has something to do with the themes chosen. (Apparently this mostly happens to people who use the "Windows Classic" or "Windows Standard" themes.

It doesn't happen in safe mode which indicates that the problem is in one of the processes or files that normal Windows uses. So I checked my theme and it said "Windows Classic (modified)". Changed it to Windows Classic, started IE8 and the black bars where still there. Checked themes selection again and once more it showed a modified "Windows Classic" again.

I searched and searched until I found what I think is the best permanent solution. It's not my idea but came from someone named ikke1.

Here's the procedure: Click start, control panel, administrative tools, services. That brings up the "Services" list. Scroll down to "themes", single click it. Click the "stop" option, double click "themes" which opens the properties window. Change "automatic" to "manual".

If you use 3rd party themes and you have the problem click the dependancies tab and check if anything uses this service. If your's does, then this may not work for you. In that case just set it back to start and change back to "automatic".

Here's ikke1's post (near the bottom):

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r23676931-IE-Permanent-fix-for-IE8-black-bar-in-XP

I can't register or join all of the forums this problem is asked about, so if it works for you please spread the word and give credit to ikke1.

Mark
 
C

Craigmill

Flightless Bird
I have applied this "fix" and will let you know how I get on!

Many thanks for your input.
 
P

PA Bear [MS MVP]

Flightless Bird
[What fix?]

Craigmill wrote:
> I have applied this "fix" and will let you know how I get on!
>
> Many thanks for your input.
 
C

Craigmill

Flightless Bird
PA Bear - the work around fix identified by Ikke1 and posted by Mark

Click start, control panel, administrative tools, services. That
brings up the "Services" list. Scroll down to "themes",
single click it. Click the "stop" option, double click "themes" which
opens the properties window. Change "automatic" to "manual".

Raymond
 
R

rob^_^

Flightless Bird
Hi Craig,

Thanks very much.... I did not think to look in running services.
I expect that it will still start with windows startup (as it should) but it
won't re-appear with a desktop refresh or a refresh of the Themes service.
Right click on the Desktop and select Refresh to manually refresh the
current theme.

Now... we just have to find out why it cant read/write one of the values
from the registry (and translates an empty value as 0=color black)

What account is the Themes service running under? Your User Account I bet,
not as Administrator.
At windows startup it would be using Administrator Privileges. <bingo>

<getting warmer RoBear>
Regards.

"Craigmill" <craigmill@sky.com> wrote in message
news:116d4bea-6340-4e32-9710-b19e5662e48e@c16g2000yqd.googlegroups.com...
> PA Bear - the work around fix identified by Ikke1 and posted by Mark
>
> Click start, control panel, administrative tools, services. That
> brings up the "Services" list. Scroll down to "themes",
> single click it. Click the "stop" option, double click "themes" which
> opens the properties window. Change "automatic" to "manual".
>
> Raymond
>
 
C

Craigmill

Flightless Bird
Rob - not to sure what you are asking for - I am the sole user of my
pc and therefore I am the administrator by default.

I would be more than happy to provide you with any information you are
looking for - just give me step by step instructions.

FYI - I have now rebooted about 30 times with no black bars! So far so
good!

Raymond
 
R

rob^_^

Flightless Bird
Hi Raymond, (Craig... )

No don't worry.... the last bit of information about the running Theme
service was enough of a hint for me. I am writing what I think is the solid
test case and the fix all fix as we speak... I have not had the issue myself
(except when I tweak a desktop theme), but I am now in a position (I think)
to make it happen at will and also to fix it at will. Just part of the
Software development process.

Regards.

"Craigmill" <craigmill@sky.com> wrote in message
news:9f43c8ec-c43d-4c59-aa23-7eeadd042aac@b7g2000yqd.googlegroups.com...
> Rob - not to sure what you are asking for - I am the sole user of my
> pc and therefore I am the administrator by default.
>
> I would be more than happy to provide you with any information you are
> looking for - just give me step by step instructions.
>
> FYI - I have now rebooted about 30 times with no black bars! So far so
> good!
>
> Raymond
>
>
 
C

Craigmill

Flightless Bird
Update - I must have rebooted my netbook at least 50 times over the
last week with the appended work around and so far so good - no black
bars!!!!!!!

Raymond

Click start, control panel, administrative tools, services. That
brings up the "Services" list. Scroll down to "themes",
single click it. Click the "stop" option, double click "themes" which
opens the properties window. Change "automatic" to "manual".
 
M

mark1950m

Flightless Bird
Very good Raymond, I'm experiencing success also.

Thanks ikke1 whoever you are !!!!

Mark


Craigmill said:
Update - I must have rebooted my netbook at least 50 times over the
last week with the appended work around and so far so good - no black
bars!!!!!!!

Raymond

Click start, control panel, administrative tools, services. That
brings up the "Services" list. Scroll down to "themes",
single click it. Click the "stop" option, double click "themes" which
opens the properties window. Change "automatic" to "manual".
Click to expand...
 
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